Biohazard
by No.13Baby
Summary: When a mysterious disease is implicated in a BAU case, two agents must draw upon the strength of their partnership to resist not only the threat of a deadly illness, but the growing menace of their supposed protectors.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: No one you recognize is mine

A/N: This came about basically on a whim. Essentially, I became convinced that in a fandom this huge, there needed to be some M/P quarantine fics floating about, and that it is a crying shame that there don't seem to be any. Also: I miss Prentiss.

"…_What's open?"_

"_Sat's still falling." _

"_I need more suction…" _

There is no way that it is actually that much brighter and louder in the emergency department corridor than it was in the back of the speeding ambulance, but the minute the double doors burst open it is like tumbling into a wormhole. Reality fractures, and sensory input seems to come in bursts, like disjointed movie clips.

"…_Ok, go ahead and prep for intubation." _

_A nurse cocks a skeptical eyebrow at the young resident. You notice that, even in the midst of the hospital white that threatens to overwhelm you. You feel the freeze frame like a physical lurch in the pit of your stomach before everything starts whirling again. "You sure you want to do that now?" _

"_...No, uh… you're right. Let's set up for a rigid bronch. And page thoracics and ID." _

You can no longer see the stretcher; there are corners, doors, medical personnel between you and your partner, and you don't like that one bit. The waiting room of … whatever institution this is is beige and green, upholstered cheaply but with apparent care for the emotional state of those doing the waiting.

(Incidentally, the nurse does not call it that. Instead she invites you to sit in the "Quiet Room," and for some reason this makes you feel like laughing in her face. You don't. But you don't sit, either.)

You wait. The room is green and beige but it looks faded out and whitewashed to you, and you don't like that either because it reminds you of another room in some other place.

_Your breath comes out white like the cheap cotton covering you both, like the colourless walls, and like the thin, white sheet spread over a cold surface onto which a rivulet of bright red blood flows, drip, drip, over unnaturally warm skin. _

The red of the blood in your vision, so lurid and out of place against all the cold and white, startles you out of the memory of that room; you're not there now. The team will be here soon, you realize with another start. Then, yet another. No. You have not spoken to them since—this morning? Days ago? –before. Your phone is gone. Left behind somewhere, or incinerated. The department clerk tells you to dial 9. You do, and you continue with the first 10 digits that come to mind.

Rossi. You should call Hotch, you know. Rossi picks up. His panic is not evident in his voice, and you are ridiculously thankful for that. You exchange few words, give him the name of the hospital (provided to you by the clerk. You note as you look around for the second time that everything is less white than you had originally thought.) You know Rossi is on his way and will bring the team with him. You go back to sit in a green and beige Quiet Room and wait for your team to arrive, their imminent presence both calming and terrifying. When they get here, this will undoubtedly become more real, but at least you will be living it together.

First, though: they will want to know what happened.

_******48 hours earlier******_

It escaped none of the profilers that Garcia looked a bit queasy as they took their seats in the briefing room.

"Ok," she started, foregoing her usual greeting, "This is a nasty one. People are turning up dead in Lake Michigan. Three of them in two weeks. Matthew Van Dyke," she began, and smiling headshots appeared on screen as she introduced the victims, "Victim number 1. 23 year old white male. Reported missing from his home in Milwaukee two weeks ago by his girlfriend, found floating in Lake Michigan a week later. Elaine Wiggins," Garcia continued in a forced monotone, "40 year old white female, reported missing by her sister 10 days ago, found by some recreational boaters last Monday. Finally: Addie Saunders. 28 year old black female. Never made it home from a party last weekend. Wednesday evening a group of teenagers found her body washed up on the shore."

"Any connection? Signature?" Rossi inquired when Garcia trailed off and seemed hesitant to recommence. "This victimology is all over the place. There must be a reason they called on the BAU for help."

"Um, yeah," Penelope's eyes flashed to his only briefly; she then twisted away with an exaggerated grimace so as not to have to look at the next picture in her presentation. "_This_ would be his signature."

This time, no one could really blame Garcia for becoming slightly green around the gills. The images were gruesome; each body, bloated from several days in the water, was split vertically from collarbone to upper abdomen, leaving cavernous holes in the victims' chests.

"Yeah," Garcia continued, still averting her eyes. "None of what is supposed to be in there" she gestured to her upper chest "is actually in there. In fact, pretty much all the victim's insides are apparently gone."

"Kept by the unsub? Or just eaten away by fish?" Morgan mused.

"It takes an astonishing amount of energy to cut through human bone," Reid offered. "I would find it surprising if the unsub were to have gone through the effort of opening the chest cavity without some sort of purpose. I think it's more likely he's keeping trophies."

"If we can figure out what he's taking and what he's doing with it, we might find out a lot about what motivates this guy," Emily said. "The heart seems most likely, and if that's what he's after we might be looking at something highly emotionally-motivated."

JJ cocked her head in thought. "True, but the inconsistent victimology doesn't particularly indicate a sexual or romantic basis for the murders."

"Morgan, Prentiss, when we land in Milwaukee I want you to go straight to the ME's office" Hotch spoke up decisively. "Let's learn everything we can from the bodies early. I agree that we'll know a lot more if we can figure out what the unsub is keeping. The rest of us will start with the Milwaukee PD. Wheels up in an hour."

* * *

It was Morgan's turn to pick the radio station, and Prentiss was not thrilled. "I'm pretty sure it's always your turn," she griped.

"It is not _always_ my turn. And I think it's perfectly reasonable to use the rule that practically everyone else on the continent uses- whoever drives picks."

"Yeah, as I said, _always _your turn. And speaking of, why do you always have to drive anyway?"

Morgan rolled his eyes at her. "You drive plenty."

"Yeah, I do. When Hotch is thoughtful enough to give me a break from your ass and pair me with Reid." Prentiss gave him a sideways smirk. "Or when you're otherwise occupied beside me clutching some automated weapon that's serving as an even better phallic extension than a government-issued SUV."

Morgan feigned disgust and offense. "Prentiss, why the hell are you always so filthy?"

Emily just beamed at him and reached for the radio.

* * *

It was jarring, sometimes, working the schedule that they did and realizing that a lot of the rest of the population actually kept regular hours. The city Medical Examiner's Office seemed uncannily deserted at first, before Prentiss realized that on a Sunday afternoon, the office would have a skeleton staff at best. She looked over at her partner. "They are expecting us, right?"

Morgan shrugged. "Garcia talked to the secretary. He's not here over the weekend, but he said at least one of the juniors would be in for lab work and could walk us through the report. He apparently talked to one of them who said he'd be in and able to meet us no later than 1."

They reached a set of double doors with a large Restricted Access sign across the centre of each side. A small, utilitarian workspace was set up just outside the doors and off to the side, and a few cheap waiting chairs that had seen better days lined the adjacent wall. A yellow button was mounted onto the wall beside the doors and featured a sign, instructing visitors to "Please ring once for assistance." A simple 8.5 x 11 typed sign was attached crudely with a piece of tape to the front of the desk. "If no one is here to assist you, please have a seat and an OCME representative will return shortly." Prentiss pressed the button, then took a seat beside Morgan in the chairs. She glanced at her watch: five minutes to 1. If the junior ME who was supposed to meet them was not here yet, he would be soon.

Morgan's attention was already focused on his phone, where he was reading through the preliminary ME's report that Garcia had emailed all of them. The report was fairly cursory and only included the investigation up until Friday afternoon, when the Chief Medical Examiner would have left for the weekend. "Looks like Addie Saunders's body was in the best shape; the report says she was in the water for the least amount time and that while her lungs were gone, some of her organ tissue was still intact, including cardiac tissue.

Emily nodded. "So I guess JJ was right about the heart theory… but lungs are pretty delicate, right? They could have been eaten away quickly."

"I don't think so. A lot of this stuff I don't understand, but it does say the trachea seems to have been cut straight across directly under the cricoid cartilage. I doubt a fish did that."

"A trachea," Prentiss raised her eyebrows. "We've seen some weird paraphilias before, but what the hell would someone want with a trachea?

Morgan shrugged. "And lungs too, maybe. This is looking less and less personal and more like some sort of science experiment."

They fell into silence for a few moments, Prentiss glancing around impatiently and Morgan still scanning the report. He was the first to speak again. "Apparently the mucosa lining the nasal passages and pharynx were really damaged – more so than the rest of the body. Looks like they took cultures to see if anything grows that could indicate an infectious source of the damage and are examining the tissue to see if it was some sort of inhaled environmental substance."

Prentiss nodded distractedly and, glancing at her watch again, got up to press the button yet again. While Morgan went back to his reading, she moved over to the double doors and peered into the small windows built into them and into the lab on the other side. Cluttered tables were aligned in the centre of the room, and the walls were adorned floor to ceiling with shelves and cabinets overflowing with lab equipment and hastily-labeled organizing containers. Emily could not see much of the room through the small window and was about to retreat to the waiting area when something caught her eye. A smear of dark red on the front of one of the cabinets straight ahead. Betadine? She thought to herself. Surely they used it in a lab, right? She took in the rest of what she was seeing. While lab equipment seemed to cover every available surface, giving he room a haphazard look, everything was immaculately cleaned- a controlled environment would be crucial to the labwork done here. Emily rose to her tip toes to increase her field of vision as much as possible. No, it was definitely blood- and, she saw now, a small, matching spatter of it was on the floor underneath the cabinet.

"Morgan," she whispered. She didn't need to look back at him as she pushed on one of the swinging double doors and reached for her gun to know her partner would be behind her instantaneously. She met resistance from the door at first, until the hydraulics kicked in and it swept smoothly open before her. She gestured quickly with her gun to the blood stains that had caught her attention and knew that Morgan had seen it and understood when she heard him draw his own weapon. "Hello?" She called out. "FBI…"

She felt Morgan touch her shoulder and directed her attention to where he was pointing. Her jaw tightened as she took in what he was indicating. A man in a dark blue monogrammed OCME lab coat lay sprawled, half under a table. There was no need to feel for a pulse; he had obviously been dead for several hours at the very least. Dried blood was caked onto his face and neck from nose down, and small pools of it had congealed beneath his head and around his shoulders.

Morgan and Prentiss tightened their grip on their weapons and continued their search of the huge space. After only a few seconds of eerie silence, both agents' phones began to ring nearly simultaneously. Neither allowed the interruption to break their concentration on clearing the room, however, especially when over the ringing they suddenly made out the sound of a weak cough coming from a corner slightly hidden by one of the lab's numerous shelving units. When they saw what had caused the sound, Prentiss glanced at her partner and lowered her weapon as he gave a terse nod and continued clearing the rest of the room.

The woman was young, barely out of her mid twenties. Her crisp lab coat and the blouse underneath were stained with the blood that was flowing liberally from both her nose and mouth. Her pretty blonde hair was messed, stringy with sweat, her eyes were closed, and she was obviously struggling to breathe. Emily crouched down beside her, ignoring the intrusive dings of several new text messages from her phone, then the ring of another call. Her attempts to rouse and reassure the young woman, however, were met with only another feeble cough and a fresh flow of blood from her mouth. Emily reached for her phone to call an ambulance but felt her heart drop when the laboured breathing of the woman in front of her finally ceased all together. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Emily made a decision. The woman was dead, and there was nothing she could do about it. Now, her first priority was having Morgan's back and making sure the room was cleared.

Prentiss moved to put her phone away, then furrowed her eyebrows when another text flashed on her home screen. From Hotch: GET OUT NOW. Frowning, she scrolled quickly through her missed texts- at least one from every member of the team. She felt her panic begin to rise as on the other end of the room, she heard Morgan ignore yet another call. She hurried towards him, eyes falling on only key words from the texts her team members had been sending her. Different information, simultaneously from each of their phones. Smart. "_Milwaukee OCME on lockdown..." "CDC called in…" "Get out…" "Get out…" "Get out…" _

"Morgan?" She heard herself say, but her voice came out thin, timorous. Finally, she spotted him. Her partner was crouched near the body of the first scientist, examining a container of a gelatinous substance that seemed to have fallen off on of the tables near him.

It was all it took for Prentiss to find her voice. Her phone fell from her hand and clattered, forgotten, on the cold, tiled lab floor.

"_MORGAN!" _


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **To my anonymous reviewers: I didn't get to thank you personally, but I really appreciate your feedback!

The alarm in her voice was enough to have Morgan dropping the container, gripping his gun, and whirling to a stand as he searched for an unseen threat. Instead, he faced only a whirl of black hair and a firm hand gripping his arm and dragging him towards exit.

Morgan faltered. "Prentiss, what-?"

"We gotta get out of here," she cut him off, turning to him in a brief, silent plea to follow now and ask questions later. Morgan didn't miss the twitch in her brow and the widening of her eyes as they fell to his chest, noting a small, sticky smear on the front of his t-shirt. He didn't have time to read anything into it, though, because the moment he was tugged once more into motion, the door to the lab swung open.

The next moments gave Morgan the surreal feeling of having stepped into one of the corny and largely incomprehensible low budget sci-fi movies that Penelope sometimes gushed over with Reid and Emily. Almost instantaneously, it seemed, they were surrounded, Emily's hand still gripping his forearm, the two of them in the centre of a circle of faceless intruders. Intimidating-looking respirator masks covered the nose and mouth portion of the head to toe white suits, leaving only a small visor-like window where the eyes would be. The darkened plastic reflected the dim surrounding light, making it impossible to make out any facial features at all.

Still in the dark about the messages Emily had received, Morgan instantly went on the offensive when he was wrenched from her. He was about the deal the first blow when he heard her trying to get his attention.

"Morgan!" She called. "Derek! Don't, it's— ah!— it's the CDC. There's some sort of public health threat," she attempted to explain what little she knew, though Morgan could see her, too, taking issue with the Suits' brusqueness and fighting back against some of their rougher handling. Morgan nearly flew back into combat mode when he saw the top of his partner's shirt yanked roughly over her shoulder, when he, too found himself nearly immobilized in a sort of bear hug while a second Suit produced a large, loaded syringe, yanked up his sleeve, and plunged a needle into his deltoid.

Morgan couldn't stop himself from cursing loudly as the viscous fluid was forced into his muscle, spreading out from the needle's entry point in writhing, fiery ribbons of pain. He was still reeling when he found both his arms gripped by the Suits on either side of him, earning another burst of agony from his shoulder, and felt himself being propelled forward towards the doors.

The corridor outside the building's lab was unchanged, still dimly-lit and deserted, but instead of a near-empty parking lot outside the building's front entrance, he and Prentiss were pushed into a cavernous white tent, closed on three sides, with the fourth sealed off by the front of the OCME building behind them. The tent was empty save for a utility van facing outwards at the far end and a small row of collapsible cubicles, supported by piping and closed on all sides by translucent white plastic sheeting.

Morgan barely had time to take in his transformed surroundings when suddenly his shirt was being pulled up his back and over his head. He pulled away, now shirtless, as the Suits reached to finish stripping him. "Hey, hey!" Morgan glared at them threateningly but quickly began loosening his belt before they could try again to take the task upon themselves. "Come on, is that really necessary?" A dull thud of skin against PVC and a stumbling Suit clutching his (apparently) groin a few meters away told him that Prentiss was taking a less verbal approach to her protest.

No sooner had he loosened the fly of his jeans than the suits were upon him again, ending his momentary reprieve, rushing him out of the last of his clothing, ushering him into one of the cubicles, and re-sealing the plastic behind him. His lungs seized painfully when the freezing water of the decontamination shower hit him full-blast. He could hear his own discomfort echoed in Emily's startled and breathless cry next to him, but the cubicle was too small to retreat from the spray. When the icy downpour finally shut off, the front of his cubicle was again flung open, and Morgan found himself being held in place and scrubbed from head to toe with rough cloths soaked with some sort of liquid that stung his eyes and nose and made his skin tingle. Finally, one of the Suits produced a thin towel which Morgan hastily fastened around himself while again being escorted none too gently towards the back of the tent and the waiting van.

The back door of the van was already open, and Morgan found himself flung unceremoniously inside, followed almost immediately by Prentiss, who seated herself across from him looking affronted. Morgan fought to tamp down a familiar surge of protectiveness as he took in her appearance, shivering, with cold water dripping from her soaking wet hair and down her bare shoulders and chest. The narrow strip of cheap terrycloth she clutched just above her breasts was barely enough to cover her, and she shifted uncomfortably trying to maintain any semblance of modesty. Still, the firm set of her jaw and the defiance in her eyes as they locked gazes across the back of the van told him that Emily was, first and foremost, pissed off, and Morgan felt slightly pacified by that.

"You ok?" He asked her through chattering teeth as he felt the van shift and start moving.

Prentiss huffed, her breath and voice both coming out warbled from her violent shivering. "About to freeze to death practically naked in the back of a van, yeah, I'm fantastic." Her expression softened then, and she looked over at him searchingly. Morgan could have sworn it was anxiety he saw in her eyes then. "How're you?"

"I'm fine," he replied decisively. Then, after a moment, "though I think you might be coming out of this in better shape than me."

Derek immediately mentally kicked himself as her sharp intake of breath, combined with what he had recently learned about the situation, put her earlier concern back at the lab into context.

"What?" She breathed, her expression stricken. Morgan flashed her a reassuring grin.

"Well, Princess, you're the one who gets to go back and tell everyone you managed a shower with Derek Morgan."

To his relief, Prentiss relaxed visibly, snorting and rolling her eyes. "Oh, Mister, that is a secret that I will be carrying with me to my grave."

They exchanged a smirk, both thankful for the momentary distraction, and neither quite willing to broach the more unsettling topics at hand. It was during the momentary silence that followed that he noticed it- just above the line of the towel on her left breast, crude and angry-looking against the pale of her skin.

Morgan had never been good at schooling the strongest of his emotions. The shock and fury that clouded his face was instantly recognizable and had Prentiss averting her eyes and reaching an arm across her chest, presumably to rub her sore shoulder. "Swear they put ammonia or something in those shots…" he heard her mutter half-heartedly.

"Emily, Jesus Christ, he _branded _you?"

He saw her squeeze her eyes shut against the venom in his voice, then reluctantly turned back towards him to catch his gaze. "It's not a big deal." She attempted a lopsided grin. "I never really intended to be in a situation where you'd have to see it." Upon seeing the hurt in his eyes, she added softly, "I'm sorry you did."

"Not a big deal—" Morgan took a steadying breath. "Do you know how much it pisses me off to hear you downplay what happened? Not a big deal… Emily, watching your partner _die_ in front of you…"

She cut him off. "Morgan, is this _really_ what you want you want to be talking about right now?" she snapped, her voice nearly hoarse with a sudden anger that surprised him.

Derek deflated somewhat. He took in her posture, hunched with tension and discomfort, and the faint pink that coloured her cheeks, and couldn't help but feel guilty. He allowed the indignation to drain from him for a few more moments, then peered over at her, contrite. "Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—I'm tense, ok? This is…" he gestured around them resignedly, "this is pretty damn insane. I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable."

Prentiss continued to stare at the blank white of the front of the van's cargo area, her body rigid and curled in on itself, jaw working, clench-release, clench-release, as anger and forgiveness obviously struggled for dominance inside her. A few minutes later, Morgan gave up the hope that she would answer him and, sighing, dropped his head back against the side of the van and closed his eyes. When he looked up again, he was surprised to find Emily's eyes on him, guarded now, her posture loosened into an almost defeated slump.

"Just… what the hell were you thinking?" She asked softly.

Morgan blinked. This was not what he was expecting. "What?"

"We're in a _lab_, Morgan." Her voice was quickly gaining back the authority he was used to hearing from her, but he didn't quite know where the sudden vehemence was coming from. "With God knows what lying around—_including_ two bodies. Our job is to clear the room and call an ambulance. That's it. We don't know what the hell we're doing otherwise! And you decide to go play detective?"

"I'm a cop."

"No, you're a profiler. You _were_ a cop. You shouldn't have been touching anything."

"Prentiss, you know our job intersects with investigation. We do it all the time; you've never had a problem with it before."

"Well, I have a problem with it now!"

It was Morgan's turn to raise his voice. "Now that what, Emily? I'm sorry this happened, but I'm not the enemy here!"

"Now that you—" She cut herself off with a choked swallow as her throat seemed to seize up. He could see her rally herself, and by the time she leaned against the side of the van, arms crossed defiantly in front of her, her voice had lost its shrill edge. She continued grumpily, "Now that we've been thrown into the back of a van by men in space suits who inject us with stuff and plan to lock us up in … wherever the hell."

The wall of tension between them broke suddenly. One instant Morgan was staring at her, defensive and incredulous; the next, he was watching the line of her lips thin out as she fought to maintain her severe expression. He found himself doing the same.

"…And probably do experiments on us," she continued to grouse, fighting laughter.

He wiggled his eyebrows at her. "Mating rituals?"

Prentiss snorted. "With my luck, definitely." She paused, seemingly in thought. "Maybe they have bets going as to who can take whom in arm wrestling?"

"See who will snap first and kill the other for food?"

"They need new referees for their underground cockroach-racing ring?"

They were both laughing, doubled over and breathless, the sheer insanity of the past 90 minutes hitting them all at once. It was almost enough to make them forget they might be the next victims of some sort of horrendous and obviously deadly infectious agent.

That is, until the van stopped moving.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Again, to those I wasn't able to message privately, thank you so much for your support and feedback. **

There must have been more Suits waiting for them at their destination, for Prentiss barely had time to exchange an apprehensive glance with the man across from her as the van slowed to a stop before the back doors were flung open to reveal what looked like a small, unmarked parking garage. Two Suits immediately climbed into the back of the van, dragging her out by one arm while several more seemed to stand guard around them.

As soon as her feet were firmly on the cold, concrete floor of the garage, Prentiss wrenched her arm free of her escort's grip, glaring in the general direction of the anonymous Suits' faces. "You know, you guys could use some work on your public relations." Morgan, she noted with relief, was holding his own, apparently having made himself appear threatening enough that he was climbing out of the van of his own volition. Once he was safely beside her, Prentiss felt reassured enough to make more demands.

"We need to make a phone call," she stated firmly. "We're FBI agents. Derek Morgan and Emily Prentiss. Our team is going to be wondering what's going on with us." The Suits appeared unfazed, making no indication whatsoever of having heard her. They simply herded the two agents through the only door in the whitewashed cinderblock surrounding them.

Habits that had over the years become almost instinctual kicked in so naturally that Prentiss hardly even realized that she had started forming a mental blueprint of the compound. Silently, she catalogued distances, tracked each turn they made, and counted the unmarked doors that lined the blank hallway on either side of her. _Relax_, she scolded herself. _This isn't a weapons ring headquarters, and you're not a covert operative. Hell, right now you're not even an FBI agent. You're just some poor schmuck wrapped in a stupid towel who had the bad luck of stumbling upon a superbug. _When she looked over at Morgan, though, she noted that he was deeply absorbed in his own inspection of their surroundings. It made her feel oddly reassured.

They halted suddenly in front of an anonymous door- identical to all the others. A white-gloved hand pushed it open, and Prentiss and Morgan were shoved from behind into small room containing only a counter with a sink, white veneer-covered particleboard cabinets mounted to the wall above, and a few chairs. Five Suits followed, two occupying themselves with the agents, two hovering by the door, and one moving to retrieve something from the cabinet above the sink. Prentiss felt the familiar indignation swell in her as she was guided firmly to one of the chairs and forced to sit. "Would you _back off,_ please? I can move around fine on my own." She spoke as if to a suspect, loading her tone with as much authority as she could muster and leaving no doubt as to her seriousness. She shivered as the backs of her bare legs made contact with the cold seat of the chair. "And would it kill you to turn up the heat in here?"

Beside her, she could see that Morgan was similarly reaching the end of his patience. "What the hell is this?" He demanded.

"Blood test," came a muffled voice, male, from behind one of the bulky helmets. _So, they're human after all_, Prentiss thought snidely to herself. Still, she felt herself relaxing just a fraction; she had to admit there was something unsettling and otherworldly about being at the mercy of people who were both faceless _and _silent.

The snap of a tourniquet tight around her upper arm pulled her from her thoughts. Prentiss watched the needle pierce her vein, and tube after tube was introduced into the attached plastic adapter, starting with two large bottles, already filled partway with different coloured fluids with which her own blood mixed to form a murky black. She was beginning to think they were going to drain her dry when the needle was removed. Occupied as she was with pressing a piece of gauze to the crook of her arm to stem the bleeding, she was taken by surprise when a gloved hand pressed her forehead back, immobilizing her head, and a long cotton-tipped swab was shoved up first one nostril, then the other. She sputtered a curse as she was released. "What, are you trying to take samples of my _brain_?"

Prentiss didn't receive a response, not that she had expected any. She shot a warning glare to the Suit in front of her, who stopped reaching for her and backed off marginally to let her rise from the chair on her own. Through with pleasantries, she took the small victory and pressed on while being led again out of the room and farther down the corridor. "We need a phone call. Now. If we need to be isolated or whatever and there's no phone, you need to call Aaron Hotchner at the BAU and let him know we're ok. 202-555-0159." Prentiss continued when she received no acknowledgement, feeling her outrage grow by the minute. "I'm not kidding around. We are FBI, got it? You do _not _want our team to find out you held us here without any access to communication. Do you know how much harm that type of publicity could do to your division?"

She stopped her rant when their bizarre travelling party halted once more in front of another door. This one, she noticed, featured a glowing green light protruding from the wall above it, beside which a manufacturer's sticker proclaimed "Negative pressure functional when illuminated_._" _Ah, _she thought._ Quarantine room. _So this is where their little journey ended. The door opened into a small anteroom with another door straight ahead on the opposite wall. The Suit who held open the first door stepped aside to allow Derek to enter the anteroom ahead of her. Emily moved to follow, but suddenly found her path blocked by two Suits who stepped in front of her and each grabbed one of her arms.

She froze. "No." _…watching your partner die in front of you… _The words had stung, had echoed through her head incessantly since the moment he had uttered them. They had coiled themselves into her chest and settled there as a constant, icy panic, but God, to be separated? To not even know? "No. No way." It was a statement more than an argument—this was not up for debate. She began to tug against the Suits' grip on her. "Let go of me."

From the anteroom, Derek had turned to face her, alarm and regret painted across his expression. "Emily, maybe it's better if—"

"_No._" She looked him fiercely in the eye, recommencing her struggle in earnest as she felt them try to pull her away down the hall. "Let me _go._ Listen, I know there's a risk…" With one arm essentially immobilized from gripping the towel closed in front of her, she writhed to the opposite side, trying to twist her free arm out of their grip. They responded by wrenching it painfully behind her and giving her a violent shove to the side, nearly causing her to lose her balance.

"Hey!" She heard her partner's angry protest. "Easy! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Prentiss dug her bare feet into the cold tile underneath them and ignored Derek's urging her to stop struggling and go. Suddenly the Suits' pressure on her stopped. She looked around and noticed a few of them had their heads cocked as if listening to something. _Communication system inside the helmet_, she guessed. _Makes sense_. She didn't much care what the reason was, though, only let out her breath as they nodded to one another, turned her around again, and nudged her into the anteroom with Morgan before exiting and closing the door.

It was almost a reflex that had Prentiss turning and immediately testing the door through which she had just entered. Locked. Of course. Still fuming, hands shaking with the adrenaline rush, she pounded on the door and called out to their dubious hosts. "I swear to God if you don't give us our phone call you will have the entire weight of FBI to deal with when we get out, not to mention the unqualified _ass-kicking _I will—"

"Emily." She heard Derek behind her, talking her down. "Hey, Em. It's ok. Let's go in and talk. Come on," He tugged gently on her shoulder, and she felt her reason returning. Feeling slightly abashed, she reluctantly allowed him to coax her away from her attack stance. Before following him through the second door, however, she couldn't help but turn again to give the outer door one last pound with the side of her fist, shouting at the top of her lungs to the hallway outside for whoever might be listening, "_And bring us some goddamn clothes!"_

* * *

The room was large, white, and blank, resembling an oversized and gutted hospital room. A small bathroom had its door on the opposite end of the same wall as the entrance. Straight ahead of the main door along the adjacent wall, pushed into the back corner, was a tiny cot covered by a thin mattress barely worthy of its name and a white blanket made of cheap, coarse knit cotton. While Prentiss busied herself pacing the room restlessly, Morgan slumped onto the cot and leaned back against the wall. Prentiss glared at him, incredulous.

"How the hell are you so calm? I swear these CDC assholes have it coming to them. And thanks for all the support back there, by the way."

Morgan smiled as she let off steam. "I'm sorry, Prentiss, but you know it would probably be safer if we were separated. If I was exposed—" He held a hand up and cut her off when she opened her mouth to protest. "I know, I know. I get it." He smiled at her. "I'm just saying it would be safer. And for the record, I'm not calm; I'm just tired. I hate this as much as you do. I just know there's nothing I can do to change the situation right now."

Emily paused. "Tired?" She looked at him appraisingly.

"Tired, Prentiss. Just tired. You know things are probably going to be fine, right? Hell, that shot hurt enough that it _better_ have been effective. This is probably just an additional precaution above and beyond prophylaxis."

Prentiss nodded, chewing her lip, then whirled around as a sharp pound on the door to the room startled her. She exchanged a weary look with Morgan, who leapt up to pass her and open the door himself. As he bent down to retrieve something from the anteroom floor, Emily could see the anteroom was empty. When Morgan turned around, he was holding a tray in one hand and two thin, plastic packages in the other. Prentiss's eyes fell immediately upon the crisp, folded white cotton wrapped in clear plastic and grabbed the packages out of his hand, claiming whichever looked smaller and absently shoving the other back against Morgan's chest. He smirked at her, trailing his eyes deliberately over her body, and very nearly began teasing her about the blush that covered her from face to chest before deciding against getting her riled up again so soon. Prentiss only narrowed her eyes at him and headed eagerly for the bathroom.

By the time she emerged, looking ridiculously satisfied with the shapeless white scrubs that now covered her, Morgan, too, had changed and was seated on the floor near the cot, inspecting the contents of their dinner. He grinned at her as she approached, tucking her top into the drawstring waistband of the loose-fitting pants. "Not bad, huh?" He preened. "I feel like a surgeon."

"I wouldn't get too excited," she replied mildly, sitting down against the cot with him, "You look more like a mental patient."

Morgan waved off the jab. "Well, Princess, looks like they were listening after all. Maybe they even called Hotch like you told them."

Prentiss frowned crankily. "I wouldn't give them too much credit… I wonder what the chances are that they'll bring us another cot."

He feigned hurt. "What, you don't want to cuddle?"

"I don't care how much you like to spoon, Morgan, that thing isn't fitting two people. I say we choose: bed or blanket."

Morgan looked at her expectantly when she didn't continue. "Okay. So? Which do you want?"

She had to smile; of course he would let her choose. "Blanket, definitely." She wasted no time in snatching it off the bed and throwing it across their shoulders. "They obviously didn't hear me regarding the heating in here."

"Oh I see how it is," he pretended to gripe, shooting her a mock glare. "You force yourself in here with me, and now I'm expected to share my blanket with your crazy ass."

He smirked at the obscene gesture tossed flippantly his way and continued. "So now for the harder decision." Morgan held up the two shrink-wrapped sandwiches for her examination. "Turkey or egg salad?"

Prentiss felt her stomach flip at the sight of the cheap food that looked like it had been bought out of an office vending machine. "Ugh, neither." She reached instead for one of the bottles of water and peered into the two small medicine cups that were the tray's only other contents. Each contained one large, oval white tablet.

Morgan shrugged. "Ok, but you might want to get something into your stomach before taking that if it's an antibiotic. I don't want you puking all night in my bathroom."

She shot him a look, but grabbed half the egg salad anyway and forced some of it down before tossing back the tablet. She dropped the rest of the soggy sandwich back onto the tray and wrinkled her nose. "Disgusting." Wrapping the blanket more tightly around her, she leaned back against the cot, resting her head on the mattress, and tried to clear her mind of the day's harrowing events.

It couldn't have been too late in the evening, impossible to tell in the windowless room, but Emily had already felt her eyes start to grow heavy when Morgan's voice roused her. "You gonna try to sleep?"

She shrugged. "Not like there's anything better to do."

Morgan continued after only a slight pause, as if he couldn't help himself. "You sure you're ok on the floor? We could take turns."

Prentiss shook her head and shifted, curling up sideways in the corner formed by the metal frame of the cot on one side and the wall on the other. "I'm fine. Anyway, you said you were tired too." She could see Morgan nod reluctantly and climb onto the cot, collapsing onto his back with a sigh, his head inches from hers. She was silent for several minutes, then:

"Derek." She heard his breath hitch as if he, too, had just been drifting off.

"Yeah?"

"Wake me up if… if anything."

"Prentiss, I'm fine."

"Just wake me up, though. Okay?"

"Okay," he agreed. "I'll wake you. You too?"

"Yeah." A beat. "Night, Morgan."

"Night, Prentiss."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: At the risk of clogging this up with a bloated author's note, I received several questions regarding romantic pairing after the last chapter, so I thought I'd address it here rather than respond privately this time in case others may be wondering the same thing. As always, thank you to ALL of you for your kind feedback! The short answer to the shipping question for this story is I don't know yet. I had set out to write a friendship fic only, then toyed with the idea of doing something more shippy briefly (because let's face it, a quarantine make-out session would be hot,) but the way things are shaping up I think M/P are going to have other things on their minds. I hesitate to answer too specifically, because as my fellow writers can understand, stories sometimes have a tendency to write themselves, and what I end up writing often ends up fairly different from what I think I'm going to write. I can say that I don't think shippers will be disappointed, but unfortunately the quarantine sex may have to wait for a different fic! Come to think of it, maybe someone out there wants to take the challenge?**

**Finally, just a heads up that I have a packed week coming up, so the next update might be less quick than usual. Don't worry! I won't forget! **

Consciousness crashed into him in an explosion of white: white walls, white limbs tangling with his, restricting his movements. Muscles tensing automatically for a fight, Derek had already been pulled to his feet before he was able to take in his surroundings and remember their significance. The panic that rose up in him had as much to do with the sinking feeling that he was forgetting something extremely important as it did with the unattended assault.

Emily. That was it. The panic swelled to a momentary crescendo until he managed to catch a glimpse of his still-sleeping partner as he was dragged out the door, dark hair spread out beside the spot where his head had been resting just moments before. Still fighting off the last remnants of sleep-related stupor, Morgan found himself imagining in a crazy moment of non-sequitur that same hair brushing against his cheek as he slept.

He was already in the hallway by the time he came fully back to himself, surrounded on all sides by Suits who guided him quickly and, if he was honest with himself, much too roughly for any civil servant, back in the direction from which they had originally been led.

_So_, he thought. _It's just me they want. For now._

Bolstered by this knowledge, he decided against putting up too much of an argument and followed the Suits more or less willingly. He could handle this, and Emily would be relatively safe back in the quarantine room. She wouldn't like it, he knew, but he was more than willing to stay here getting pushed around by some geeks in space costumes if it decreased his chances of getting her sick.

They retraced their previous route for a while, then eventually diverged from it by bypassing a turn and heading instead through a pair of heavy-duty double doors, beyond which the doors lining the hallway became much fewer and spaced farther apart. They entered the first one on the right, and Derek immediately felt his senses go on alert when he got inside.

He had been expecting more blood tests. Instead, the room in which he found himself was several times larger than the small lab where he and Prentiss had originally had samples taken. It was also cold. Not chilly from a draft contained within a concrete room, but frigid. Morgan could see faint wisps of white with each of his exhalations. He curled his toes to try to break contact with the freezing ground beneath him and studied his new surroundings warily.

The walls were, as always, a monochromatic white, but this time one of them was divided by a long, darkened window that spanned most of its length. A one-way mirror, he guessed, and couldn't help the uneasiness that came over him when his mind inevitably leaped to the question of who exactly was on the other side.

The room was largely empty save for some bare stainless steel trays lining one wall and a large monitor mounted on a cart in one corner. Attached to the monitor was an ominous looking black tube coiled menacingly at its base. What alarmed him, though, was that instead of chairs, he saw only a metal surgical bed in the centre of the room. A thin, white sheet was draped over it, but there was no additional padding.

And, there were reinforced nylon straps attached along the sides. Morgan backed away marginally, eyeing the Suits for any forewarning of menace.

"Sit." Came the muffled voice. Morgan hesitated for a moment before heading cautiously to the bed, taking a seat on the side but never breaking his view of the Suits. Sit. Fine, he could do that. _As long as they don't ask me to lie down, _he thought. Something definitely felt off about this room.

Still, the Suits made no indication of being interested in any sort of confrontation. Two of them stood a good distance away, their stances relaxed and non-threatening, while another one brought over the familiar blood collection tray and set it next to him on the bed. Still on high alert, Derek divided his attention between them. He watched the tourniquet being applied and his arm being prepared, then looked across towards the other two. It was his first mistake.

He felt the needle pierce his skin, then the tourniquet being removed. Surprised, he looked back to the suit directly in front of him.

"Alread—" But this wasn't a blood test. His eyes widened in alarm as he felt the cold fluid rush into his vein, but he managed nothing else.

Everything went black.

* * *

Emily started awake the minute she heard the door click shut. Shivering, she kept her eyes closed and willed herself to forget it and go back to sleep while another part of her brain nagged at her. There was something horribly ominous about that sound; what was it?

Another surge of adrenaline had her eyes flying open and her head pounding at her sudden jerk upright. Her hand flew out almost of its own accord in front of her on the bed to come into contact with only empty space. Morgan.

"Morgan?" She fought dizziness and the fog that threatened to descend over her eyes as she vaulted to stand, the blood rushing from her head all at once. Placing a palm to the wall briefly for support, she lurched forward to the door, jerking it open and trying to quell her panic when she found the anteroom empty. Knowing it would be useless, Emily pulled hard on the handle of the outer door anyway and couldn't help the surge of hopelessness she felt at confirming that it was, indeed, still locked.

Overcome by the need to be where she had last seen him, Emily rushed back into the room, checking the bed compulsively as if his absence had been simply a trick of her tired mind. Finding the room still deserted, she ran to the open door of the bathroom.

"Morgan?" Nothing.

Making her way dazedly back across the room to sit on the edge of the empty cot, she was horrified to find herself losing the battle to keep her head above the ever-rising tide of despair that was now threatening to sink her. Suddenly realizing how intensely her hands were shaking, she gripped the edge of the cot until her knuckles were as white as the rest of her surroundings, attempting to physically anchor herself against outright panic.

It wasn't enough, though. Images swirled up unbidden from behind her eyes, and Emily fought desperately to moderate her breathing which had begun to feel more suffocated by the minute.

They had been separated after all. She would stay here until it was all over, one way or another, and she wouldn't find out what had happened to him, and if he was okay, until she was released. Maybe it would be her team who would fill her in on the details. And maybe her partner wouldn't be there getting filled in beside her.

Or. He was already sick. They had taken him away in the middle of the night because he had begun showing signs (did he know? Had he gone willingly to protect her?) and were trying to treat him now. He would be alone, he would be thinking about his family, and he would be scared of never seeing them again because they both knew how this thing could end.

Or. It was already too late. Emily's stomach lurched and churned angrily as her thought process came to a screeching halt, unable to carry the idea any further.

And—she felt her eyes sting and blur and the breath being squeezed from her chest—and she hadn't been there to protect him.

_Honoré de Balzac once said, 'Most people of action are inclined to fatalism, and most of thought believe in providence.' Tell me, Emily Prentiss, which do you think you're going to be?_

Ian Doyle had known the answer to that question as well as she had, but he had been wrong about one thing. Because what he could not have possibly understood, being who he was, was that the acceptance of her own seemingly inevitable outcome had been a secondary consideration. In actual fact, Emily had never been a fatalist. She had learned early that almost any outcome could be changed with the keen enough application of intellect, tact, and sometimes good old-fashioned kicking-and-screaming force of will. It was what had made her a good covert operative, what now made her a good agent, and what had made her a pain in the ass of every supervisor she had ever had.

_You took the only thing that mattered to me, so I'm gonna take the only thing that matters to you: your life." _

The words had chilled her, but it was in that moment that she knew that she had already won because he had gotten it all wrong. No, fatalism had had nothing to do with it because her life wasn't anywhere near the only thing that mattered to her anymore. Instead, her actions had been driven by the conviction that through them she had the opportunity to save something that was infinitely more worth fighting for.

Emily set her jaw and decisively blinked back the threatening wet sting in her eyes. The possibility of action was limited here in a cold, locked quarantine room, but she knew it was either keep fighting or lose herself to panic. So, calmer now, she began to do the only thing that still made sense to her.

She started building a profile.

* * *

It was cold.

Derek tried to roll over and pull the covers back over him but found it difficult to move. It took enormous effort to pry his eyes open, and he squeezed them shut almost immediately after succeeding when he found himself staring straight into the fluorescent light above him. It made his head pound. His throat ached, and it was _cold_. Where the hell was he?

He made a second attempt to change position and this time managed to prop himself onto one elbow. Blinking now that the light was out of his eyes, he found himself surrounded by white. White walls, white sheet, white Suits moving silently around the hard surface on which he found himself.

Oh. "Emily—" he began, his voice a rough croak, but lost his train of thought when he began to nod off again. He lowered himself onto the cold surface.

It could have been seconds or hours later when he awoke again, more coherent now but still somehow unable to make his muscles follow his will. This time, he remembered exactly where he was, and a sense of dread was not far behind the realization. _What did they do to me? _He wondered, trying to take stock of his body. His throat still ached like crazy, but aside from the overwhelming tiredness that seemed to turn his limbs into jelly, nothing else seemed obviously wrong with him.

He could barely fight back when he was lifted hastily to his feet and dragged out of the room and back down the hallway, only kept his eyes on the ground in front of him and focused all his energy on keeping his feet beneath him, his body upright.

Relief flooded him at the sight of the familiar green light when they stopped deposit him into the anteroom, and Morgan kicked himself mentally because since when did a locked quarantine room feel like home? Now standing on his own, Derek had to steady himself as the outer door clicked decisively shut behind him before he advanced to open to inner door.

No sooner had he touched the handle than the door flew open. Prentiss stood tensed for a fight, fists clenched at her sides, eyes wide and swimming with both anguish and fury. A strangled noise escaped the back of her throat, and suddenly she was flush against him, both arms thrown tightly around his neck, dark hair tickling his cheek. He lifted an arm slowly to her back to return the embrace and couldn't help but notice that her entire body was trembling. Impossible. Emily Prentiss couldn't be crying, could she? He nearly went in for a tease, but she she stepped back then, eyes searching but relatively dry, and the questions started.

"Are you okay? What happened? Where'd you go?" Derek's body swayed somewhat at the sudden lack of support, and she must have noticed because she was reaching for him again, supporting his body against hers and leading him into the room to sit down on the cot.

"I'm fine. I'm fine, Prentiss." Still, she hovered even after he was safely seated on the cot. Already he felt some of his strength returning, some of the tired haziness lifting. "Maybe you shouldn't be so close."

She ignored him. "What happened? Derek, what'd they do?"

Derek shook his head. "I don't know. I was knocked out—" he tried to disregard the sudden hitch in her breath and continued filling her in on what he remembered. When he was finished, they were silent for a while, trying to absorb the events of the morning (at least, he assumed it was morning.)

Emily spoke first. "Morgan," her breath quickened; the conclusion she had reached during his absence still alarming in its implications, "this isn't the CDC, is it?"

He let out a humourless laugh and shook his head again. He could tell it wasn't really a question; he wasn't sure when exactly he had come to the same conclusion, but hearing it articulated for the first time only drove home its truthfulness.

They exchanged a look. Feeling much better now, if still a bit tired, Derek finally had the chance to take in his partner's appearance.

She looked a wreck. A surge of affection warmed him when he noticed her still-trembling hands, and he had the strongest urge to still them with his own. Her hair was a mess, her eyes wide and shining, her cheeks and forehead still flushed.

Wait.

…_the faint pink that coloured her cheeks…_

… _the blush that covered her from face to chest…_

He had known her for almost seven years, during which he had seen her face down, fight with, even _flirt _with some of the most terrifying minds in the country. He had seen her hold her ground in front of Strauss and give as good as she got when it came to his own sometimes merciless teasing. She was his friend, his partner… He had shared some of his best moments with her, and some of his worst. And he knew this: Emily Prentiss did not blush.

He was reaching for her before he knew what he was doing. He felt his heart leap into his already aching throat, swallowing hard against the painful lump.

"Emily," his voice came out hoarse and breathless with horror. "Do you have a fever?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Note: I held off from dropping an F-bomb as long as I could, but I cracked. Couple instances of language in this chapter, just a warning. You guys are great :)**

* * *

Prentiss jerked away from the hand that grazed the side of her forehead and narrowed her eyes at him. "What?"

Morgan was undeterred and reached for her again. "You're… you're sweating." It was true; her hair clung to the back of her neck and damp strands of it curled messily at her temples and over her shoulders to stick to the front of her chest.

"No, I just—I think it's damp in here." She brought her hand to her forehead and shivered again, avoiding eye contact. Morgan could tell she was distracted, her mind already realizing the truth in his words and working to accept it. "I'm fine."

"Emily, you're burning up," he said quietly, trying to school his expression so she didn't have to see his fear.

Finally, she met his eyes, conflict dancing across her expression. He could tell the exact second she came to the same realization he had. Her eyes widened, panic rippling behind them unchecked for a split second before being tamped down by something harder and much more deliberate. Morgan knew that expression well, had seen it countless times before, and knew exactly what was coming. He moved preemptively closer to her to and was able to grab hold of her arms just before she retreated.

Held in place by his hold on her and unable to rise, Emily tried to push his hands away.

"Emily."

"Don't touch me," she whispered.

"Emily, don't do this. Don't run away from me."

"Please." Her eyes locked to his, tear-filled. His heart ached.

"No. Listen to me." She shook her head, eyes wide and glistening. "I'm not sick, Emily. I'm not sick. I've been in here with you this whole time." She jerked back from him once more and he tightened his grip on her, forcing her to keep looking at him. "We're in a negative pressure room. You know what that means? You think it's going to make a difference if I'm 30 feet away from you at the other end of the room?"

She had deflated slightly. He could see the defeat in her eyes, but he couldn't run the risk of her running now and shutting him out completely. He let go of her arms only after pulling her closer to him and placed his arms instead around her shoulders, forcing her cheek to his shoulder and immobilizing her in a crushing embrace. He felt her tense against him, and she did not return his embrace, but he didn't let go. Instead, he let his body absorb the heat of her skin, nearly on fire even through the cotton covering her, and the intense trembling that now felt almost painful to him. As he felt her finally relax minimally, he allowed his grip to loosen slightly and used one hand to rub gentle circles on her back. "I've got you," he murmured in her ear. "It'll be ok. I've got you." He held this position, Emily burning in his arms, for what seemed like an eternity, and slowly, slowly, she seemed to sink into the embrace. He had begun to wonder if she had fallen asleep when she spoke finally, a touch of her normal self evident in her still tremulous voice.

"Does this mean I get the bed _and _the blanket tonight?"

He let out a watery laugh and buried his nose into her hair, squeezing her tighter to him.

"I think it means you're in for a cuddle, Prentiss."

* * *

"So if it's not the CDC, who are these guys?" Derek asked, desperate to keep his partner focused on something. In the absence of the adrenaline that had apparently kept her going during his absence, Prentiss had very quickly deteriorated. She sat now, shivering, in the back corner of the cot with her back against the wall and the thin blanket pulled tightly around her shoulders. Any previous energy she had displayed seemed to have seeped out of her, leaving her quiet and exhausted-looking as she struggled with the fever that was quickly overtaking her.

She met his gaze lazily when he spoke, and it seemed to take a moment for the light to come on behind her eyes that indicated she had heard and understood him at all. Derek scrambled to keep her attention. "Any ideas?" he prompted, not wanting to give her any time for that light to extinguish itself again. _Come on, Prentiss. Take it as a challenge. One more thing to face down. _

It seemed to work: Emily perked up, and he could see the familiar determination in her expression as she forced herself to sit up straighter and focus on answering him. _Good girl. _

"I was thinking about it. While you were gone." She answered, sentences split into awkward chunks by the shivering that racked her body. She stopped to take a shaky breath. "I'm thinking military."

Derek raised an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?" The thought had crossed his mind as well, but he needed to keep her as engaged as he possibly could.

"Fits the profile…" Emily trailed off, then shook her head and seemed to try to jolt herself back into reality. "We're looking at money," she continued, more strongly now. "And resources. Equipment. Organization. They've got a lot of expensive stuff … access to facilities. But they're not going through any of the usual channels."

Morgan nodded. "No consent, no access to communication."

"Right, and their behaviour. Distant, efficient…"

"Impersonal." Morgan agreed. "They're not here to hurt us, but they don't mind doing so if it serves their purposes." He gulped, thinking of his own haunting experience not long ago. Something struck him then, and he mentally berated himself for being so distracted by their current predicament that he didn't piece it together earlier. "It's like a science experiment," he continued, alarmed by his own realization. "Prentiss, these guys don't just fit the profile of the military; they fit the profile of our unsub."

His partner just nodded in silent agreement, resting her head back against the wall behind her and closing her eyes. Apparently, she had already come to this conclusion as well. Morgan's mind raced through the implications. He shook his head in disbelief. "We've got to be missing something here. If this is the military and they're responsible for our first three victims… We can't possibly be thinking the government is sanctioning something like that."

"'Course not. Not officially_._ But," she paused and sighed, biting the inside of her lip. "Morgan, you can't tell me you don't think that _some_ part of this operation is dirty."

Morgan hesitated before answering, his memory supplying unwanted images of their victims, bodies torn open and desecrated. He tried to shake them free of his consciousness. "Damn," he muttered. "Prentiss, we gotta get out of here."

She shook her head. "I don't know." Her voice was losing its strength, and it made Derek's temper flare.

"What do you mean you don't know? What's not to know, Emily? You think I'm just going to let them—"

"I know I'm not going anywhere."

This time his temper didn't just flare; it threatened to consume him. As Derek floundered for a response, she held up a hand to quiet him. "Before you go trying to do something dramatic, just hear me out. I don't trust these guys for a minute either, but I don't think they're trying to kill people. I think the deaths are just failed experiments. The split sternum, the damage to the pharynx, the neatly transected trachea… it all fits, Morgan. Reid said no one would go through that much trouble for no reason. It would take not only effort and training but specialized equipment, too. I think they're testing this thing—maybe even trying to cure it—and when the experiment fails they go in to see how far they got and what the damage was."

Derek was pacing now, anger and helplessness making him jittery with restless energy. "Yeah, or they're just using people to test out a biological weapon." He responded heatedly. "You have no reason to believe they're trying to cure it."

"Maybe, but they gave us both the same tests and treatments until today. They couldn't have known from the beginning who was exposed and who wasn't… I think they were hoping the medications would work. What's the point in having a powerful biological weapon if it's just as dangerous to your own people as it is to the enemy because you have no antidote?"

"Okay, even if you're right—you're talking about human experimentation, Prentiss. Just because they're hoping to cure it doesn't make them somehow less dangerous."

"I'm not saying it does." She stopped and gave him a sad smile. "I'm already sick, though. Leaving here isn't going to improve my chances, and I might just end up making other people sick. Anyway, who knows? Maybe they'll get it right this time."

Derek could tell her words were meant to give him some hope, but he could also tell she didn't put too much stock in the idea. He took a slow, deep breath in an attempt to subdue his raging emotions. "So they had a baseline from the tests they did initially," he continued her theory for her. "They came back showing that you'd already been exposed at that point and that I hadn't yet. When they took me, they were checking to see if anything had changed since being in here with you."

He stopped pacing and slumped down on the edge of the cot, burying his head in his hands and trying to think past the rattle of Emily's breathing next to him and the terror in the pit of his stomach that accompanied it. Derek wasn't stupid; he knew he had control issues. When you spend so much time during your formative years being denied control by people and events so much more powerful than you, he reasoned, you spend the rest of your life trying to get that control back. Right now, finding himself in a situation against which he was so completely helpless, Derek could feel every emotion he associated with that part of his life flooding him all at once: guilt, anger, desperation, impotence—intellectually, he knew where it all came from. It didn't make it any easier to deal with.

"I'm sorry." Her voice was small and breathless, but it startled him out of his thoughts. He looked up at her, confused.

"For what?"

"If I—if I hadn't forced myself in here with you—"

"Don't." He cut her off. "Don't start doing that now." He could see her close her eyes against his protests, determined to suffer her guilt. Derek turned to face her, swinging both legs up onto the cot and scooting closer to sit cross-legged in front of her. "Hey, just listen to me for once in your life, okay? You did what you thought was best. You had my back like you always do, and I trust you with my life because I know you always will. You think I'd be happier in here alone wondering what was going on with my partner? Hell no. So that's it. I don't want to hear any more of this 'sorry' bullshit. Got it?"

She opened her eyes and nodded weakly, but when she looked at him he could see the feverish glaze already clouding her expression. She seemed to be looking straight through him one instant, then at him the next before gazing off again as if he weren't even there. Her breath was coming in violent shudders, and she continued to tremble beneath the blanket she still clutched around her.

Derek reached out again to touch her forehead and swore under his breath. He reached for the blanket, attempting to unwrap it from around her and ignoring the whimper of protest his actions elicited. She managed to look thoroughly pissed off at him despite being half delirious and gripped the edges of the blanket more tightly against her. "I'm sorry, Em. I'm so sorry," he soothed as he managed to pry it from her fingers and throw it out of her reach onto the floor. Having accomplished that, he grabbed his discarded towel from the floor next to the cot and hurried to the bathroom where he soaked it in water as cold as he could get it. Folding the towel into a compress, he returned to press cool cloth to her forehead, neck, and chest where it quickly warmed with the heat absorbed from her burning skin. He returned to the bathroom for more cold water, this time trying to cool both her arms, before repeating the process yet again.

He had lost count of how many trips he had made when a trickle of blood from her nose almost immediately gave way to a steady rush. With a startled gasp, Emily brought her hands up automatically in an ineffective attempt to staunch the flow. Derek froze, gripping the damp towel in one hand, and watched in horror as the blood seeped through her fingers and dripped down the front of her white top. For some reason the task of cooling her down had consumed his thoughts to the extent that he had almost managed to forget the context in which he was doing it. The sight of the bright red blood staining her face, hands, and front brought him crashing back to reality and straight into the terror of losing her again, immense and immovable as a cement wall. With his momentum so violently disrupted, he could barely think for a moment or two, let alone act. It was the bewilderment he saw in her eyes when she pulled one of her hands back to study the blood that covered it, dripping from her fingers and sliding down her wrist to her forearm, that spurred him again into action. He bent over her, cradling the back of her head with one hand while pressing the folded towel under her nose with the other and trying to mop up the blood that only seemed to be pouring out more insistently by the minute. "It's ok," he heard himself whispering, over and over. "It's ok. You're going to be ok."

It was then that he heard the door open behind him.

Derek was on his feet in an instant, fists clenched and stance threatening. He was ready to go on the immediate offensive but was torn upon realizing that there were four of them. He knew if he stepped forward for a fight at least one would easily bypass him and he wouldn't be able to protect Emily. So he placed himself between her and the Suits, ready for an attack but not making any advances himself.

"What do you want?" He demanded. "Don't come any closer," he raised his voice authoritatively when they failed to answer and stepped forward as a group towards the cot. They made no indication of having heard him and continued to advance while Derek backed up in order to keep his position between them and his partner. "Hey, okay, let's talk about this." He tried a diplomatic approach, raising open-palmed hands in front if him. "You want her, you go through me first. You want to give her your medicine? That's fine, but you do it here where I can see you."

Still barely acknowledging his presence, the Suits continued to advance, and Derek knew he had no other choice. Crouching, he tensed his body and slammed into the centre of gravity of the Suit straight in front of him, toppling them both to the ground and knocking a second Suit off balance. Knowing he wouldn't have time to further incapacitate his first opponent, Derek scrambled to his feet as soon as he had landed, but it wasn't fast enough. He managed to jerk his arms free of the two other Suits on a surge of adrenaline, and a swift twist of another gloved hand that was reaching for him resulted in a distinct crack of bone and muffled cry of pain. Whirling, he elbowed a third in the neck and the Suit stumbled backward. Suddenly, though, Derek found himself on his knees and gasping for breath after the Suit he had previously tackled dealt him a punishing blow to the solar plexus.

While two of them held him steady as he continued to fight against them, a third approached Emily holding a round, white particulate mask. "Don't touch her," he snarled. "Don't fucking touch her… Emily!" Derek's heart dropped when his partner, looking dazed, didn't even resist as the mask was placed over her nose and mouth and the elastics secured over her head. He began to struggle even more ferociously when he saw her being dragged to the edge of the cot until a boot came down hard on the middle of his back, forcing him into a prone position and holding him firmly to the ground until the other two adjusted their hold on him. Derek felt the boot being lifted from his back as the Suit it belonged to went to assist in carrying Emily out of the room, but his movements were still restricted until she was out of his sight and the final two began to release him and rise. Derek wasted no time rolling over and striking one of them hard behind the knees, causing them to buckle. He was on his feet and ready to deal yet another blow when he felt himself being dragged back. He spun to face his second attacker, tearing at the Suit's hood in order to land his next blow on actual flesh.

But his opponent didn't have to wait so long. For the second time that day, everything went black.


	6. Chapter 6

**Thank you so much to all my readers and reviewers. That's all. **

* * *

The ache at the angle of his jaw was nothing compared to this: the burning despair that had been gnawing at him since the second he came to his senses, still trapped in the unwelcoming white room and horribly, horribly alone. Her absence clawed at his insides like physical torture, giving Derek the impression of being eaten alive from the inside. He had pounded on the anteroom door, had yelled heartfelt threats through it followed by a nonsensical string of choice words, and was now pacing the small anteroom like a caged animal. Another wave of uncontrollable fury overwhelmed him, bubbling up from his lungs in the form of a savage growl, and he felt his fist connecting with the cement wall before he even realized he had thrown the punch.

The physical pain of his now bleeding and likely broken knuckles rose above the agony in his gut for only a second, but it was enough to bring Derek back to himself. Squeezing his injured fist again, he tried to channel his energy into the shock of pain the gesture sent shooting up his arm. He concentrated on taking deep breaths, closing his eyes to minimize additional stimuli until he had regained control of his rage.

Morgan forced himself back into the room, wincing as the sight of the bloodied towel sent another pang through his chest. Unable to make himself sit down on the empty cot, so tangibly occupied as it was by Emily's absence, he sank down instead against the wall next to it. As he slumped to the hard tiles, the image of Halle Berry flashed suddenly across his consciousness. Derek snorted at the non-sequitur, but found himself diving head first into the memory anyway:

_Under normal circumstances, Morgan shouldn't even have been present at their little nerds' night in._

_In his defense, he had initially refused, but that had been before one look over at Prentiss had told him that the X-Men marathon she was apparently hosting that night had definitely not been her idea. He cocked a curious eyebrow at Penelope, who filled him in with a wicked grin and an excited mock whisper. "Emily owns the entire trilogy because of the massive lady boner she has for Patrick Stewart." _

_Beside him, Reid had nodded solemnly. "It is the only logical explanation," he concurred. _

_Judging by the number of expletives Prentiss had then used in her denial, his friends' certainty regarding their allegation was well founded. Unable to resist, Morgan had grinned. "Alright, Baby Girl, I'm in." Penelope had squealed delightedly. Reid had beamed at him through a closed-lipped smile and pushed a stray lock of hair behind one ear. Prentiss had rolled her eyes and turned back to her desk. _

_Hours later, Penelope and Reid were engaged in a somewhat indignant analysis of the movies' shortcomings, Prentiss was still attempting to appear disinterested, and Morgan had developed a new appreciation for nerds. _

"_I don't know what you two are moaning about," he spoke up. "Any movie that features Halle Berry in head to toe black leather is fine in my world." _

_Reid took the opportunity to jump on his interest. "You know, unlike her portrayal in the film adaptations, the Storm of Marvel's comics is actually one of the most powerful mutants, with powers that extend far beyond the manipulation of weather patterns and include control over electromagnetism, the ability to break down and reform certain types of molecules, and the power to channel and manipulate the Earth's energy currents to suit her will. However, due to the fact that these energy currents contain an almost infinite potential for chaos and destruction, Storm has to practice an extreme form of self-regulation in order to maintain the control she has over these forces and to prevent her emotions from seizing this control away from her." Reid looked directly at him then, giving him an endearing smile as something seemed to occur to him. "Actually, she kind of reminds me of you, Morgan." Reid's voice took on the softer, more self-conscious tone it often did when he departed from the familiar terrain of facts. _

_Penelope lit up at the insight, snuggling up to his arm and resting her cheek on his shoulder. "It's true!" She exclaimed. "I always said you were a real live superhero." _

_Morgan rolled his eyes at both of them, dismissing the comparison with a flippant remark about preferring his superheroes female, hot, and leather-clad, when he caught Emily's eye. She had remained silent during the exchange but had at some point abandoned her sullen fidgeting and was now studying him openly, a serene half-smile upturning only the very corners of her lips. _

_Something warm spread throughout his chest then, and Derek felt his heart rate quicken with the realization that these were the people who understood him in a way that even his family would never be able to. Who acknowledged the constant current of energy fueled by equal parts insatiable rage and untamed love that had seemed to course through him since the day his father died and had only grown stronger after what happened during the dark years that had followed. These were the people who witnessed his constant struggle to channel and control what had become both a blessing and a curse, no matter how well he thought he was hiding it, and who loved him anyway. He glanced at Reid, deeply absorbed once again in his analysis, then at Penelope, who was interjecting every once in a while from her place still snuggled contentedly against his side. He lifted his arm to place it over her shoulders and pulled her closer before meeting Emily's gaze again. _

_If this was what it felt like to be a superhero, he thought, then he could definitely live with that. _

The memory was a good one, and it made Derek ache all the more sharply at the empty silence of the room around him. He needed them, his team, who quietly supported him in every battle with his demons, taking up the cause themselves each time he was ready to concede defeat in order to see him emerge a better and stronger person. As willing as he was to go rogue if his own beliefs or ambitions called for it, he always felt naked without them, like going into battle without his armor. But her, his partner—Derek tried to push the memory of those hellish seven months from his mind—he had felt her absence like a physical defect, like an extension of his being had been ripped away. That hadn't been going in without armor. That had been someone hacking off one of his arms, then flinging him into the middle of a swordfight.

Morgan steeled himself against the phantom pains that had again begun to nip at the growing void in his core. _She's not gone, _he reminded himself. _She's not gone, and she's going to need you in control when she gets back. _

Slowly, and through sheer force of will, he forced the lid down over his raging emotions and felt the chaos recede as he regained dominance over his own energy.

* * *

When they returned with her, Emily was barely able to stand. He could see her there in the anteroom, supported between two Suits, head lolling to one side and jerking up intermittently as she fought hard against falling asleep on her feet. Morgan wanted nothing more than to run over and tear her away from them, but the Suit between them was blocking the way between the door and the anteroom behind and refusing to advance further until Morgan retreated.

"Stand back." The muffled command came for a second time, and Prentiss swayed dangerously between her escorts as her knees nearly gave out. Morgan had no choice but to comply. Backing up to give them a wide berth, he nonetheless refused to take his eyes off them for a second, ready to pounce at the slightest unanticipated move as the first Suit held the door wider for the other two to half push, half carry his partner into the room and dump her into an unsteady seated position on the edge of the cot. It was only after they had cleared the anteroom that Derek noticed the rolling IV pole that the third Suit then pushed into the room behind them. Suspended from the pole were two bags containing different kinds of clear liquids, one amber and the other colourless, both leading to tubing that formed a Y and ended in a mess of white tape on Emily's forearm.

Derek was ready to make his move the second he saw the Suits take their hands off her. "Stand back," he heard again, but they had lost their bargaining chip, and Derek easily ignored the order.

They needn't have worried; he had no interest in taking his attention off her even for a second and barely reacted when the decisive click of the door being shut signaled that they were once again alone in the room.

Emily hadn't said anything yet, having immediately lowered herself weakly to the cot and curled up on her side. Her breathing was coming a bit rapidly for his taste, and she had begun to cough intermittently, but Derek also noticed that her shivering had subsided and that her skin was no longer burning to the touch. Although she was obviously fighting exhaustion and already drifting in and out of sleep, Derek felt relief so strong it was almost painful wash over him when he looked into her eyes and saw that they were sleepy but coherent, with no sign of the frightening glaze that had previously begun to take up residence in them.

He let the aching void of her absence whoosh out of him in one calming breath and, kneeling in front of her on the floor beside the cot, lifted the white mask that still covered her nose and mouth quickly away from her. He swallowed the fear that leapt to his throat when a weak cough coloured her teeth faintly pink with a mist of blood and concentrated on re-folding the towel and using a clean spot to clean the blood that still leaked from her nose and stained the skin of her mouth and chin. He was only tangentially aware of the realization that this must have been how Emily had contracted the disease in the first place—close contact with the dying woman in the lab—and that now that she was coughing he was probably at increased risk himself. The sight of the suffocating-looking white mask covering her made him sick to his stomach, though, and while the last thing he wanted was to risk his strength and compromise his ability to get her out of this mess, he had been fine thus far and trusted his partner's judgment that his best chance lay with the treatments he had already been given by their captors. He quickly put the thought out of his mind and instead gave Emily an encouraging smile as her hand came slowly up to close around the towel. He surrendered it to her, busying himself instead with gently brushing away the errant, sweat-caked strands of hair from her forehead and cheek and smoothing them as best he could behind her ear.

Finally, Derek turned his attention to the IV that filled her veins with the mysterious fluids hanging from the silver pole. The amber liquid, higher up, dripped slowly but continuously into the drip chamber, while the bag of clear fluid, suspended further down, appeared to still be full. His first instinct had been to tear it from her vein, not wanting any of their captors' mysterious substances anywhere near her, but rationality had won over. He had to admit, they didn't appear to have made her any worse, and she did appear to be a bit more comfortable at least. He settled on letting it remain for the time being, allowing himself to hope that it might actually be helping her and resolving to simply remain vigilant for any indication that it might not be.

Another cough, muffled this time by the white towel that came away marred by yet more droplets of bright red blood, brought his attention back to her. "Go," she breathed.

"Go where, Prentiss?"

Emily responded with only the slow raise of a hand to point weakly towards the opposite wall. Derek snorted. "Now I know you're delirious. We talked about this already, remember?"

Her hand dropped back to the towel, and Morgan couldn't resist reaching out to stroke her hair again. Eyes half-lidded, all her make-up long since rubbed off, the child-like appearance he had occasionally noticed in his otherwise regal-looking friend, with her big eyes and sometimes goofy, beaming grin, had never been more prominent.

He shared her silence for a minute or two until Emily's other hand began to slide across the sheet beneath her from where it had rested beside her cheek. Her fingers brushed his as she reached for his hand, and Derek couldn't help but smile at her. "Change your mind quick, huh?" He teased, catching her hand easily in his and squeezing. "Hey," he shook her fingers gently until her attention was fully on his face. "That's better." He held her gaze until he was sure she understood and squeezed her hand again when she returned his smile lazily, assuring him that she did. Without letting go, Derek retrieved the blanket from the floor behind him and covered her with it with one hand, letting his thumb smooth over her cool fingers in a soothing rhythm as she quickly dropped off to sleep. Finally feeling intact again, it didn't take long for Derek to follow her.

* * *

A tugging at his hand and loud, hollow coughing startled him awake. Emily had pulled her hand free of his and was struggling, still bleary-eyed, to rise. She appeared disoriented as Derek assisted her into a sitting position but seemed to get her bearings once he had gotten her upright and supported against the wall and gave him a small wave before giving in to another coughing fit. He winced as she lifted the front of her shirt to cover her mouth, the white cotton quickly becoming soaked through with glistening red. Silently, he placed the towel in Emily's lap and climbed up to sit next to her while she again allowed the wall to support her weight and closed her eyes, attempting to catch her breath.

Morgan was unable to watch her gasping next to him for long before the need to be closer to her won out over his desire to avoid hovering. Gently, he placed his arm around her shoulders and gave her a small tug towards him. To his surprise, Prentiss gave only a momentary and seemingly instinctual jerk against his pull before complying fully, collapsing against him and letting her head fall to the hollow just below his shoulder. Derek felt his heart tighten with something warm and sweet and terrible when he heard her let out a shaky sigh and felt her relax into him. Too soon, however, the muscles beneath his hand seized up as she began coughing again. A warm, sticky wetness trickled its way down the front of his shirt.

"Sorry, sorry" Emily moaned, miserably. "I'm sorry." He stilled her attempts to sit up again by squeezing her closer to him with long, firm strokes of his hand up and down her side. Once she seemed to have agreed to stay put, Derek hastened to change the subject.

"Remember the time you girls bought Reid a Bondage for Beginners kit for his birthday and waited until Hotch was listening to tell him his present wasn't actually the kit but the free demonstrations?"

To his relief, Emily humoured him with what could have passed as an amused snort, but there was a long pause before she answered him. "I know what you're trying to do, Morgan," she managed. Speaking seemed to cost her a great deal of effort.

"What?"

She coughed again. He could feel her tense as she was obviously forced to swallow a mouthful of blood. "Trying to distract me," she wheezed.

Derek poked her in the ribs. "It's called small talk, Prentiss. You got somewhere else you gotta be right now?" _A hospital. God, anywhere but here. _

"Mmmm. My couch. Glass of wine…" then, shuddering, "maybe just ginger ale. DVD. _The Wire_—even you like that one."

"Oh, so I am invited, at least?"

"Sure. The whole team can come."

"Jack and Henry?"

Emily stilled almost imperceptibly, a familiar wistfulness creeping into her voice. "Definitely," she sighed.

Derek swallowed, not liking the hint of defeat he was starting to detect in her tone. He shifted his weight, bringing his other arm around to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "You'll see them soon, Emily," he told her, leaving no doubt as to the determination behind his words.

Now cocooned in his embrace, Emily gave only a small nod in response, forgoing speech in favour of concentrating on catching her breath. Her coughing fits were becoming more and more choked, and Derek's shirt was quickly becoming soaked with blood despite the now-ruined towel that she continued to hold weakly in front of her mouth. Her breathing was rapid, shallow, and laboured, punctuated by soft grunts of effort and choked gulps when too much blood filled her mouth. Derek could only run soothing hands over her side, back, and arm, clinging to the insane and desperate hope that if she could just hold on a bit longer, get some rest, let him take care of her… then she would get better. The team would find them and bring her to a hospital. She would be cranky but she would get her treatment even if he had to supervise her day and night. She would go home cured and everything would be back to the way it always was. They faced danger. They got through it. They moved on. _Together. _And stronger.

It was a long time before Emily broke the relative silence. "Wonder… how long this thing takes," she panted. Her voice came out thin and exhausted.

It took Morgan a moment to realize what she meant, and a longer moment to recover from the violent jolt her words gave him. His hands stilled over her as the painful, squeezing agony leapt from the pit of his stomach to his throat and forced him into a stunned silence. By the time he regained his voice, though, his mind was clearer than it had been since they'd arrived. Suddenly, the whole situation coalesced into a single, uncomplicated conviction: Emily Prentiss was his partner, and he was not going to watch her die in this room.

Only, he never got to tell her. Because Emily's body against his had gone completely limp.


	7. Chapter 7

**Happy Halloween! I will be listening to an extensive playlist of dark ambient on repeat for the next 26 hours straight and suggest you do the same. I hope none of my readers or their loved ones were too affected by Hurricane Sandy. **

**We're getting close, my friends.**

* * *

Something hot was crushing her chest.

Emily tried to lift her hands to push whatever it was off her, but the suffocating fatigue that was pressing in on her like a thick fog made it impossible to move. She gave up trying to take a deep breath and let the dark grey of the fog envelop her until the need for air became urgent enough that she was forced back into struggling.

Attempting to breathe past the thing crushing her, Emily felt the heat spreading, bubbling up the centre of her chest and into the back of her throat. Water? She sputtered, attempting to clear it from her mouth and wondering how the hot thing had gotten from on her to _in _her. She must have swallowed too much water. Emily wracked her brain trying to figure out why she would be underwater in the first place, although it did explain the heaviness that had settled on her and made it difficult to move. She had the nagging feeling that there was something important she was missing regarding this discovery, but she was too tired to dwell on it any further. She would sleep for a while and figure it out in the morning.

Except the incessant humming in her ear was making it very difficult to fall asleep. Emily could have kicked herself. Did she leave the TV on somewhere? Getting up to turn it off was not an option, so she settled on listening to it, hoping that concentrating on something other than the pressure in her chest would distract her enough that she would be able to get some rest.

Something caught her attention, though: her name. Emily listened more closely. Yes, there it was again—the humming had coalesced somewhat into a voice, and not just any voice. Derek was talking to her. She could make out her name but not much else; his words were too muffled. But that made sense, Emily reasoned. He was probably still above the water.

Still, she liked knowing that he was nearby, and Emily allowed herself to relax, taking comfort in the sound of his voice. She wished he didn't sound so worried, but she supposed there was nothing she could do about it. She had known Derek long enough to know there was no getting around his protective side.

_Relax. _Emily thought. _I can hear you. I'm right here; can't you see I'm fine? It's not that I can't answer you, it's just that I'm so tired… _

She listened on, taking shallow breaths only which wasn't really so bad—at least it hurt less—and letting the pressure slowly trickle out of her. Why had she been so uncomfortable before? She was just about to drift off when Derek's voice rose in urgency and something knocked into her shoulder, pitching her body back and forth nauseatingly. Annoyed, Emily took a breath intending to tell him off, but whatever was shaking her stopped abruptly, and she forgot what it was that she wanted to say. Just when she was finally starting to get comfortable, however, the shaking started again. This time, something in her friend's voice started nagging at her. Grudgingly, she forced herself to stay with it and concentrate. It didn't take her long to figure out what it was: Derek didn't sound worried as she'd initially thought—he sounded terrified.

Maybe he was in trouble and needed her help. Or maybe it was someone else on the team… and what the hell was she doing, anyway?

Suddenly, Emily really, really wanted to talk to her partner.

Forcing herself to take a painful breath in, she was dismayed to find herself inhaling more of the hot liquid. She choked, the need for oxygen rushing back to her in a single wave, but each coughing fit left her even more greedy for air, and each inhalation only brought more fluid rushing into her lungs, setting off a hellish cycle of choking and gasping. Fighting desperately to clear her airways, she tried to concentrate on Derek's voice, hoping she could follow it to the surface because a terrible realization was quickly dawning on her.

Emily was drowning.

* * *

Derek nearly shook with relief when she started coughing again. Emily's painful battle against the blood filling her lungs was heart-wrenching to watch, but he put away the guilt that jabbed at him for actually welcoming it because anything was better than the horrible stillness that had crept over her only minutes before when she seemed to be forgetting to breathe.

He had yelled his throat hoarse. He had pleaded for them to take her, the very thing he had been fighting so hard against, even while hating himself for even considering it. He had begged them to come back, to give her whatever it was they had to give, even to separate them for good, if that was what it took to save her. He had promised not to fight this time.

His pleas and promises had been in vain, and Derek had finally owned up to what had become painfully obvious: no one was coming to help.

It had only taken articulating it to himself, and the heart-stopping moment of helplessness that had followed, for Derek to set his jaw and re-think his approach. He would just have to get them out by himself.

Kicking the door down would not work; he had tried it already several times, though that didn't stop him from trying once more for good measure. With the heavy-duty door and frame set into the cement wall, it was a fool's errand. There was nothing he could conceivably pick the lock with. He looked around the room again, taking stock of all possible exits. With the door not an option to him, he took to examining the wall along the back of the bathroom, hoping to find a weak spot allowing for the plumbing. No luck: where the cement stopped, the wall was lined with thick plastic made unsuccessfully to look like ceramic. Morgan tried a few punches just in case. There was no way he would break through using his muscles alone.

Finally, Morgan looked up. There were two air vents on the ceiling, but life didn't often imitate James Bond. Even in the unlikely event that the ducts were conveniently obstacle-free and led directly to the corridor outside, there was no way he would be able to fit his shoulders through the narrow opening. Morgan sighed and squeezed his eyes shut, fighting another urge to hit something. He hazarded another glance at Emily, pale and gasping on the cot, and cursed out loud. He couldn't do this alone; he needed his team. Where were they? Did they even realize how horribly wrong this had gone? Were they looking for them? He closed his eyes again, picturing them with him, throwing out theories, solutions, and bits of knowledge, offering support and feeding off each other's ideas as they had done thousands of times before. He pictured Hotch's leadership and calm stoicism that Morgan sometimes wished he could better emulate. He pictured Rossi's quiet, almost paternal support, Reid's friendship and enthusiasm, and JJ's understated but consistent sharpness. He pictured Penelope's smile and let the image comfort him as he took a moment to regroup.

_What would Rossi observe about this place? _He prompted himself impatiently. _What would Reid say? _Mentally, he walked himself down the outside corridor, through the door with the familiar green light that had both taunted and welcomed him, and into the anteroom, empty, useless except for...

The anteroom. Morgan backed up mentally. _What would Reid say? _The green light. The sign above the door: **Negative pressure ****functional**… _Reid would explain to me the mechanics of negative pressure. _

He looked up again. Two air vents, so one had to be a vacuum to maintain the pressure balance. It didn't help him gain an advantage escape-wise, but—he looked over at his friend, who had started yet another bout of choked coughing—it might allow him to exploit the one thing the Suits seemed to be afraid of: whatever was making Emily so sick.

As if on cue, the ventilation system kicked in for another cycle. Derek held his hand up to one of the vents, feeling a thin current of air blow against his hand. He did the same to the second: nothing. Estimating the distance from his hand to the ceiling, he determined he would just be able to reach by standing on the cot. Perfect.

Morgan wasted no time. He hurried to the bathroom and grabbed the towel that Prentiss had hung on the doorknob when she had changed. He dropped it on the end of the cot, then reached for the other towel which he used to uselessly wipe the blood from Emily's face one last time before throwing it next to its twin. Regretfully, he removed the blanket from his friend's body and tossed it into the pile. He took a few seconds to assess her condition before moving her. Spatters and pools of red blossomed out and away from her, staining the white sheet on which she lay. She continued to struggle to breathe, but, Morgan repeated to himself like a mantra, she was still fighting. Satisfied, he lifted her off the cot and carried her a short distance out of the way, setting her down gently onto the cold, hard floor.

"Hang on Prentiss," he said softly as he turned her onto her side to allow the blood to drain out of her mouth. "I'm getting you out of here." He squeezed her arm as if in reassurance and moved to rise, then paused, seemingly unwilling to let go just yet. He hesitated for only a moment, his hand still resting on her arm, then, decisively, leaned over her to press his lips quickly to her hairline just above her temple. Then, with a final squeeze, he got up to get to work.

After pulling the cot over to align it with the exhaust vent, Derek pulled the sheet back from the thin mattress and tossed it into a heap with the towels. He then rolled the whole pile into the blanket, noting with satisfaction how the bloodstained cloths disappeared, covered by the relatively clean blanket. Stepping up to stand on the cot, he reached up and began working the vent cover loose from the ceiling.

His fingers were raw by the time he felt it give, but as soon as he was able to slip his fingers over the edge, it loosened easily the rest of the way. Making sure to preserve the screws that had held it in place, Morgan grabbed the bundle of cloth and stuffed it into the duct, spreading it out to ensure the passage was well-sealed before replacing the vent cover and screwing it in as tightly as he could with his thumb nail.

Morgan dragged the cot back against the wall, placing it this time just adjacent to the door instead of in the back corner, then used it to prop the door to the anteroom wide open. Finally, he lifted Emily off the floor and back onto the mattress. He got to work on the tape and gauze that covered the IV in her arm first, peeling it back to expose the site and then pulling until the small catheter was free of her vein. Then, holding the gauze back against the site to staunch the flow of blood, he sat back to wait.

It didn't take long. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, Derek heard the insistent wail of an alarm filtering down the hallway, loud and intrusive despite being muffled by the door and, it seemed, some distance. He acted quickly, lifting Emily's head from its position cradled in his lap and arranging her body into as comfortable a huddle as he could before taking his place in front of the door. Forcing himself to breathe, he refused to let the fear of failure enter his consciousness. This was his one chance; he focused on getting his partner to the hospital, on her receiving the care she needed and recovering, and knew that he was ready to face anything at all on the other side of the door to make that a reality.

It was as if he had rehearsed it. The click of the lock preceded by a only second or two the slight cracking open of the door into the anteroom. Mind blank, acting purely on instinct, Morgan didn't wait any longer. He grabbed the door, flung it open, and had the Suit outside in a headlock before his opponent could even react. Gripping the protective hood and tearing it off, Derek wasted no time in knocking out the Suit with a perfectly-placed uppercut to the chin.

_The man_ he corrected himself, noticing impassively the nondescript sandy-brown crew cut and cleanly shaven face, but he didn't linger on the discovery. He returned to scoop Emily up, supporting her cheek on his shoulder, and carried her out of their prison.

Derek was half dazed with adrenaline. He followed the mental blueprint he had of the building almost thoughtlessly, seeing the way open up to his mind's eye as if he had followed it a thousand times. He barely felt his partner's weight in his arms as he glided smoothly and silently through the dimmed corridors.

But something was biting its way into his awareness and setting off ever-louder alarm bells in his head the closer he got to the exit. He had expected more resistance. It was pushing it to think he still had the element of surprise on his side; he knew the Suits came equipped with communication systems, and it seemed unlikely that their captors, organized as they were, wouldn't have suited up at the first sign of failure of the negative pressure system.

Still, he couldn't let the possibility that he was missing something slow him down now, and he certainly couldn't turn around. Though he was dealing with several unknowns, Derek was sure about one thing: he was never going back to that room. He turned a final corner, and his heart rate sped up even more as the exit came into view. With only yards to go, he adjusted Emily in his arms and picked up his pace. As he approached the grey door, he turned slightly to use his side to push on its horizontal metal handle and nearly laughed in triumph when the door slid open easily under his weight.

Finally, _finally_, they were outside the building that had confined them. Derek scanned the cavernous parking garage for an exit and hurried towards the only shadowed corner where the grey concrete walls did not meet each other, opening instead into what seemed to be a driveway. He turned the corner.

And found himself facing the gaping back entrance to a white utility van.

Morgan recoiled but did not turn back. He would never turn back. A lone Suit stood outside the van. _No, not quite,_ he noted. The man still had the neck-to-toe PVC suit on, but Derek was startled to be able to see his eyes. In place of the hood and visor, he wore only a white balaklava that obscured his features.

The two men stared each other down, both refusing to break eye contact but neither making a move toward the other. Derek readied himself to act quickly. He was more than prepared to fight, but he was loath to let go of Emily unless absolutely necessary.

It was his opponent who broke their silent stand-off.

"Get in," he ordered.

Morgan allowed himself a barking laugh. "You people are fucking nuts."

The other man shifted his gaze, slowly, meaningfully, to Prentiss, and Morgan's arms tightened reflexively, holding her tighter against his chest.

"Your friend is still alive," the man stated, expressionless, once again making eye contact.

"She's going to stay that way," Derek growled. "And you're wasting my time." His heart was pounding, and his muscles were beginning to tire. He refused to show it. Instead, he made to walk straight past the man, refusing to break eye contact, challenging him to try to stop him.

The man stepped sideways, blocking his path again, but his stance remained non-aggressive. "Your friend is still alive. Because of us." Derek stepped forward again, his arms nearly shaking with Emily's weight. He shouldered past his opponent, testing his boundaries, refusing to let the fear that was twisting his gut reach his expression. He could see indirect daylight filtering into the shadows at the top of the tunnel-like driveway, just past another 90 degree turn. Derek braced himself for an attack from behind.

Instead, a voice, still void of emotion. "I could hurt you." A simple statement of fact. Morgan stopped but did not turn. The voice continued. "We have what we want. Your friend is alive, but you'll never make it on time to save her on foot."

Morgan remained rooted to the spot, his back still turned, and knew he had to make a decision. The man could be bluffing. Getting into that van could mean both of them would end up just like the victims in their case.

_Except that's not what the profile says, is it? _The voice in his head sounded remarkably like Emily's. He listened.

No, right now, these people had no reason to kill them. The minute he exited the driveway and saw the outside of whatever compound they were in, that could change. A laboured wheeze from Emily against the side of his neck broke his inertia. Realizing he had no choice but to trust the profile, Derek turned slowly and, without a word, climbed into the back of the van.


	8. Chapter 8

Ah... thought I would never get this up, writing while watching US election results. Thank you so much to ALL of you for your amazing feedback and just for reading and (hopefully) enjoying! This was supposed to be the last chapter... but it keeps dragging on.

* * *

_They must have been in the middle of fucking nowhere._

_Derek had emerged, blinking in the strangely non-fluorescent light of the early morning sun, to a stretch of road that ran straight and empty as far as he could see in both directions. A small length of grass lined the shallow ditch that ran along the roadside and then gave way to patchy woodland. This was no hospital. _

_Fearing the worst, he had resigned himself to the necessity of setting Emily down and fighting his way to an escape, but the man had only stared him down, unruffled, and lifted a cell phone to his ear. _

_What had followed was not what Derek had expected. _

"_Yeah, I'm on Route 9 northbound about 5 miles outside of Raymond," the man had spoken, monotonous, into the phone. "My friend is hurt." A pause, during which the man's eyes had lowered to study Emily. Then, "She's having trouble breathing. Please hurry." _

_He had ended the call and had studied Morgan and Prentiss silently with a sort of removed interest. Finally, "good luck," was all he had said before turning abruptly and walking back to the van. _

_If he hadn't been a profiler, Morgan would have missed the first flash of emotion to appear behind the other man's eyes. Skepticism had been there, certainly, and a riotous part of Morgan had flared. This man didn't know who he was dealing with if he thought this would come close to defeating her. _

_But there had been something else there as well: something that Derek could have sworn was sincerity. _

_The man hadn't spared a glance back as he got into the van and drove away, leaving Derek, abandoned on a deserted stretch of road with his ailing partner and not so much else as a pair of shoes, with few options. Mind blank, he had crossed the ditch and, cradling Emily's body against his, had sat down against a tree and waited. It had felt like a lifetime before he heard sirens in the distance. _

Sirens.

What you hear now isn't wail of an ambulance pulling up to the ER doors; it is the bark of a portable, which, you are willing to bet, is currently mounted to the top of a black government-issued Denali. Your throat tightens.

Your team is here, and all you can do is grip the handles of your green vinyl-covered chair and try not to burst into tears.

You try not to lose it when Penelope bursts into the room first, your name on her lips and her hands on your face, your shoulder, your leg. She is followed closely by JJ, Reid, and Rossi, who have been dropped off in front while Hotch finds parking. Your boss enters not much later. They all wear matching expressions of relief, confusion, and concern. You hope you are convincing them when you reassure everyone that you are fine, but you are pretty sure you're not even coming close. Penelope is still hovering shamelessly, and you don't even pretend to mind. All you can think is that they are here, and your family is _almost _complete.

"Morgan," JJ says, finally, cerulean eyes wide and searching. "What happened?"

You take a breath as your team leans in anxiously, all wondering the same thing. This is what you have wanted. It will feel so good to tell them everything—to lay it all out for them and allow them to share this burden with you because you have been trying to go it alone for far longer than you have even known them, and you are too tired, finally, to keep pretending you don't need help.

"Emily's sick," is what you end up blurting, staring blankly at some spot just past Reid's shoulder. Because really, that is what happened. "Emily's sick." It bears repeating. You finally make eye contact with your boss. "She's really sick."

It comes out then, all of it. You know your voice is warbled and choked with emotion, but you don't care because this is your team, and she is your partner, and you were done long ago pretending that you don't need _her._

You don't say you're sorry, but you don't have to. They can read it all over you. Penelope clucks and pulls you closer, murmuring reassurances. You can tell she has simply blocked out the worst of what you have told her and has fabricated her own scenario in which Emily has a really bad case of the flu. She seems distracted, and you can almost see her mind rifling through the contents of her kitchen, trying to figure out if she is missing anything for chicken soup. You don't bother divesting her of the notion just yet; you know she will come around when she is ready.

For the first time, you look around to take in your friends' appearances. None of them appear to have slept in days; all five of them are haggard, disheveled, with dark rings around their bloodshot eyes.

"How long?" you ask. You honestly have no idea.

"Almost two days," Rossi answers. "We—" he stops and clears his throat. Hotch picks up the explanation for him.

"When we arrived at the OCME lab, the CDC had already locked the place down. No one was allowed in, but when they told us there were two dead inside, a man and a woman…" He trails off. You hear Penelope's muffled squeak and know she is holding back tears. JJ closes her eyes and Reid gives you a sad, almost apologetic twitch of the corner of his mouth. "We feared the worst," your boss continues. "No one was allowed to see the bodies until the CDC finished its investigation, so we had to wait until the photos were released. That wasn't until last night."

"I was able to look at the preliminary CDC report and do some research on the organism in question," Reid jumps in. "The pathogen is a previously undocumented and possibly bioengineered form of atypical mycobacterium, kind of like tuberculosis on steroids. It always enters the body through the respiratory tract, and can theoretically spread to any organ in the body through the lymphatic system except that the respiratory effects almost always kill the infected person first. In fact, evidence points strongly to a 100% fatality rate within 24 hours if the disease goes untreated." His eyes lose their sparkle as he stops to look at his audience; the queasiness you have been feeling at his words must be reflected in your team members' faces as well. He rushes onwards. "No, this is good! Don't you see? Whatever treatments they gave you two worked. Just… not fast enough for Emily. But whatever symptoms she's continuing to have now are likely due to the damage caused to her respiratory tract and not the progression of the disease."

Penelope nods eagerly, lapping it up. "And they can fix that," she says with conviction. You squeeze her hand. "She won't be getting any sicker?" Reid smiles and shakes his head. Penelope sinks backward in relief. JJ lets out a breath, and you are pretty sure she is blinking back tears. Rossi and Hotch are less demonstrative but appear pacified. You feel a pang of empathy for the hell your team has obviously been through for the past two days.

Time passes and you all wait. Rossi leaves the room and returns with a coffee tray in one hand and dinner for everyone in the other. You hadn't realized how hungry you were, and you try to calculate how long it has been since you ate. The memory of Prentiss teasing you over soggy sandwiches makes your stomach seize up, and you temporarily lose your appetite again. Hotch has brought you a change of clothes, and even after you have thrown the white scrubs into the garbage, you swear you can still feel her blood trickling down your chest.

Then the door swings open and a slight woman wearing a white lab coat enters. "For Emily Prentiss?"

You can't help it; your muscles seize up and your throat closes and you freeze. Though Dr. Wong is probably in her early fifties and addresses you all in a manner that is courteous but professionally brisk, all you can see is JJ walking through the doors of another waiting room in a faraway hospital with tears in her eyes and the news that would nearly break you on her lips.

JJ still holds medical power of attorney for Emily and is appraised of her status. Reid demands (you don't think you have ever seen him demand anything before in your life) to speak with the Infectious Diseases specialist consulting on Emily's case and is not above flashing his credentials to ensure he gets what he wants. You are ridiculously thankful to him because you simply cannot be the strong one right now. Rossi puts an anchoring hand on your shoulder as you listen. Hotch asks the questions no one else wants to; Garcia asks the ones everybody does.

You cannot see Emily yet because she is still in isolation, something Reid is convinced he will be able to reverse once IDC sees the logic of his research. She has undergone a procedure to clean out her airways and then another one to locally embolize the bleeding in her lungs. She is ventilated and awaiting a lengthy and brutal-sounding surgery. They will cut out the damaged parts of her lungs so that the good parts can work better. You try not to focus on the fact that this means she is not currently breathing on her own and concentrate rather on the fact that she is breathing, after a fashion, and that means she is alive.

She has not regained consciousness yet and is unlikely to until after the surgery due to the sedation. It is just as well; you have determined that this time when she wakes up she will not be alone in a strange room surrounded by unfamiliar medical equipment and staff. You have imagined before how it must have been for her, in Boston and then Bethesda, on your darker days—like tonguing a sore tooth—as if you needed more fuel for self-flagellation around the whole fiasco. This time will be different; this time she will wake up to see her partner at her side, where you belong, and she will have to put up quite an impressive fight to get you to leave.

As it turns out, Infectious Diseases wants to keep you overnight for observation. You hadn't planned on leaving the hospital anyway, and the team has already been trying to convince you to go get some sleep at the hotel, so you don't mind too much; it saves you having to argue with them. As your nurse does your intake assessment, you think about the hotel rooms your team members have kept but have likely not slept in since your quarantine. You are fairly willing to bet that they won't get any more use tonight.

Sure enough, once you are settled in your room, they file in and make themselves comfortable. They wear masks and gowns now as per protocol, and it is disconcerting to see them that way, the memories of the White Room still so fresh yet seemingly ages old. They distract you, though, with trivialities (mostly—Reid has picked up a copy of the "Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery" from somewhere but remains mercifully silent on the subject) until your attention snaps to a voice at the door.

"Derek?"

Your heart leaps into your throat, and you swallow a few times before greeting her.

"Mom?" She stands at the doorway with Sarah and Desirée hovering behind, and you don't think you have ever been so happy to see them. Your team takes their leave of you to go stake out spots in the ICU waiting room, greeting the three women as they pass.

"JJ called me. We drove up as soon as we could—oh, Honey…"

"Mom," you choke, and her arms are around you as if you are still 10 years old and scared and grieving. You crumble. "I can't do this again, Mom. I can't do it again." And there it is—you have said it out loud. You are not strong enough to lose someone else, _again_, and it isn't a secret anymore.

"I know," she shushes you, and you know she doesn't really, not like your team does, but she is your mother and she is holding you and you've just spent two days in Purgatory, so you allow yourself to cry and, finally, fall asleep in her arms.

It must be hours later when JJ walks in and wakes you. Your sisters are asleep; your mother is reading by the dim bedside lamp with one hand while the other soothes over the back of your head.

JJ is not crying. You have been sleeping for 12 hours, and Emily is being brought back from surgery.

* * *

It isn't so much that she hurts. She just has gaping holes in her that make her feel empty.

She knows this feeling. She has made a gamble and lost. Ian has gutted her and left her for dead, her insides spilling out onto a cold warehouse floor, which is why she feels so hollow. She expects to see Morgan beside her, above her, but already she is unable to open her eyes. She thinks also that she should be able to feel his hands around hers, but there are too many holes and she can't feel a thing.

But no, that isn't right. She has already died and gone to Paris and come back. She has memories (she's sure she does, though she can't for the life of her think of any at the moment) of the over two years she has spent back with her family. There is something else she is supposed to remember, and it doesn't have anything to do with a wooden stake or a warehouse or baby blue eyes boring into her, calling her by name even while killing her.

She tries to open her eyes again and fails and tries yet again, and she isn't really sure why it has suddenly become so important to her except that she has the distinct feeling that someone is telling her to do so. The voice is not familiar, but her curiosity is piqued, so she keeps trying until a blur of light and colour forces itself into her perception. _Screw it,_ she thinks, _closed is better. _

But she remembers something then: Morgan _was _there, just not in the way that she originally thought. He had just been with her, and though she can't remember exactly where, she is sure he had been talking to her. And with that, she remembers something else: she can't breathe.

Something is invading her mouth and smothering her, and it is instinct that has her reaching blindly to push it away. Again, she finds she cannot move, but the holes in her have begun to fill in, and she is almost certain now that it is not weakness but something restraining her wrists that is holding her back.

Unable to move, unable to spit out whatever is choking her and preventing her from breathing, Emily begins to panic.


	9. Chapter 9

Honestly, I thought I would hate writing this chapter. I was totally wrong, and I really hope it is as much fun to read. Just an epilogue after this!

* * *

She doesn't know what has been done to her exactly, but the holes in her are taking over her body again, and Emily can't remember why it is that she has been fighting. She swears in a moment of recognition that she sees the familiar faces of her teammates with her, so she assumes that she is ok to let go because surely they would tell her if anything was actually wrong. Only a small trace of worry remains because she could still be dreaming, and perhaps she really is suffocating like it feels like she is and her teammates aren't actually there at all. It is too late, though, and Emily sinks into the relief of nothingness.

When she opens her eyes again, everything has lost a bit of the haze that had blunted all of her thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. She is becoming quite positive that the flashes she is getting of a white room and a locked door and Morgan are real memories. She is pretty sure now that she is in pain, but it is a deep and heavy ache that she is unable to pinpoint exactly. She is also fairly certain that she is in a hospital—her hand catches on foreign plastic and wire every time she tries to move it, and there is persistent beeping and hissing around her that she now blames for the crazy dreams she seems to be having. She understands that this means she should not be pulling on anything, but she does so anyway because the thing in her throat is impossible to breathe around and is really starting to piss her off.

A hand catches hers, and before she is able to identify its owner, an unfamiliar face is hovering above her, talking to her in short, well-enunciated sentences. Emily is grateful for this, at least.

"Emily, my name is Tryn. I'm your nurse. You've had surgery." Surgery? That doesn't sound right, but Emily has to keep all her focus on what the woman is telling her. The pressure in her left hand is released momentarily, then comes back. "I'm holding both your hands, okay? Can you give them a squeeze for me?" She really isn't sure what that has to do with anything, but she follows the directions anyway because it's really no skin off her back if this Tryn woman wants her hands squeezed or whatever. Emily just hopes she is planning to take out the thing that is jammed down her throat so that she can breathe properly for a change. Tryn smiles. "Good." Emily feels her hands being gently restrained again when she tries to reach for her mouth. "Emily, I need you to listen to me. This is very important. You have a tube down your throat that's helping you breathe." _No, it isn't. _"Don't fight it. Just relax and let it do the work for you, okay?" Emily is starting to remember this part now. They never want you to fight it, but it is like telling a drowning person to stop trying to swim. She shakes her head in frustration but does her best to relax and allow herself to drown.

She lets her head fall to the side as Tryn continues to examine her and notices for the first time that she is not alone in the room with her nurse. Her team is here after all, and Emily feels vindicated. She has not dreamt up everything.

At least, part of her team is here. Hotch appears to be sleeping, neck bent sideways at a painful-looking angle, in a cramped chair in the corner, and Morgan is seated beside her, studying her with an anxious but warily hopeful look on his face. He smiles when her eyes meet his, and relief floods her. Emily cannot believe her luck. She knows that Morgan has a weakness for seeing his friends in pain, and she can swear under oath that she has never before exploited this fact to her advantage, but desperate times call for desperate measures. She fixes him with as beseeching a look as she can manage and begins to lift her hand again.

Morgan blocks it easily and, to her dismay, actually smirks. "I don't think so, Prentiss. Not on my watch."

Emily is taken aback by the betrayal, but she can't help but feel bolstered by his presence. She surrenders her hand to him. She wants to ask about the others but can't because of the damn tube, so she waits patiently for him to fill her in.

It takes him a while to get started—he fidgets with her fingers and lets his attention be diverted by the equipment surrounding her. She tries to keep her eyes open and focused on him, but her eyelids are getting heavier, and she hopes he can shed some light on what has happened before she falls asleep again.

When he does start, it's not what she expects. "I'm sorry, Em." Her eyes snap open and find his. He looks miserable. "I told myself I wouldn't let you down, but I didn't catch it. I should have seen it right away, but I was too distracted…" Emily is not sure what exactly he is referring to. "Honestly?" He continues, "I thought it was me. I got blindsided because of an assumption like a damn rookie. I—I should have figured it out sooner, gotten you out of there…" He shakes his head. "Anyway, I wanted to tell you that having you at my side out there every day, it's-" Emily can see him swallow, hard. "It's really important to me, Prentiss. So I'm not planning to stop pushing you until you're out there with me again. And you're probably gonna get pissed at me and want me to leave you alone, but I'm not going to let you down again, so you'll have to deal with it and put up with me until you're better, ok?" There is a momentary twinkle in his eye. "And I'm just warning you now that if that means I have to tie your hands to the damn bed to keep you from pulling that tube out, don't think I won't go through with it."

Emily isn't sure she has understood all of what he has told her—the edges of his voice and his face are starting to haze over again—but she knows her friend carries a lot on his shoulders. Much more than his fair share. What she wants more than anything to explain to him is that he has never, ever let her down, not even once, and that having him at her side isn't just important to her, it's _everything._ That she has died once already to save him and would do it again, no question. She wishes she could tell him all this, but she can't, so she contents herself with curling her fingers tighter around his and falling asleep knowing that it's okay to stop trying to swim if he is there to hold her out of the water.

* * *

It isn't anything like on TV.

You aren't sure why this came as such a surprise to you or what you had expected to see upon entering her room yesterday—Sleeping Beauty maybe, perfectly preserved and becomingly pale and propped neatly up in a pristine bed. You know how unrealistic the image is—she has been cut in half and chunks of her airways resected after all—but the sight came as a physical blow, and you had to force yourself to make the final few steps to her bed side.

In fact, you can barely see the woman you know so well at all under all the stuff that covers and surrounds her. Her face is obscured from her upper lip down by a mouth guard and securing devices for tubes entering her nose and mouth. The unwieldy ventilator tubing is constantly obstructing your view of her, and you can't seem to quite get over how tiny she looks by comparison, which in itself is jarring because that is not a word you would normally associate with her. Her gown is loose and hastily thrown on, unfastened, and dips down her front where tubes and wires spill out of it and tangle their way to machinery on both sides of her. It seems to be perennially stained with the blood-tinged fluid that seeps out of the many wounds and entry sites on her body. The parts of her upper chest and shoulders that you can see are a mess of white tape, gauze, and transparent dressings, as is her left arm from the tip of one finger to the crook of her elbow. You know it will be worse beneath her gown. Thick rubber tubes snake out from beneath the sheets on both sides of her, emptying fluid of varying shades of red into several collection chambers on the floor beside her bed. You count no fewer than eight pumps mounted on the pole to her right, and you have to squeeze into the minimal space left by the ventilator and cardiac monitoring equipment on her left in order to be able to sit next to her. She is on her back but seems to always curl pitifully to her left, her limp hand splayed palm-up away from her as if she is reaching for you. You take it because her nurses always tell you it's ok to do so, but you can't help the punch of irrational anxiety you get each time.

She has woken up several times since yesterday for short periods, sometimes scared and agitated and sometimes dazed and docile, but she doesn't ever seem to be fully _awake_, which just adds to your frustration and anxiety because hasn't it been long enough already? She can't talk, of course, but Penelope has already bought her a small white board with markers and decorated it along the edges with flower and heart and cat doodles, and Emily seems to take to that well enough. She has already used it once to point to one of the cartoon cats, wondering about Sergio (Penelope assures her that Kevin is taking good care of him back home but neglects to mention how much Sergio _hates _Kevin) and several times to issue shakily-scrawled, one-worded, but unequivocal demands to have the tube taken out of her mouth. She always falls asleep soon afterwards, though, often before anyone has the chance to answer her.

You watch Penelope now as she fusses over her friend, gingerly trying to smooth out her tangled hair. You know she is intimidated by the alarms that sometimes go off and always believes it is somehow her fault no matter how many times she is reassured, so she tends to flutter over Emily's hair, gown, and blanket without ever really touching her.

"She looks a bit better today, right?" She asks you, doubtfully, without turning around.

You are not really sure how to respond to that, so you squeeze her shoulder. "You better hope she doesn't get better too soon if you keep hovering like you do, Mama," you warn her. It gets you a smile, though a fleeting one.

"She was all alone last time, Derek." Your Babygirl's eyes are wide and pooling, and you can't stand it. "When she came back to us I just kept picturing her in the hospital waking up to strangers… but I never even imagined anything this bad." She takes a deep, shaky breath. "All I want is to feed her soup and milkshakes and take away all the pain until she comes home with us and everything is back to normal, but I can't even do that and it _sucks_, Derek."

You just nod because honestly that's all you've been wanting too.

"When I was shot," she starts again, more quietly. You wince and your hand stills because you don't even want to _think _about that right now. "I don't know what I would've done without you. Without all of you guys."

"I know," you soothe her, rubbing circles between her shoulder blades. "I know. But she's not alone either this time, Penelope."

You can tell you have said the right thing because her shoulders square and she reaches again for Emily, continuing her battle against the mess of black locks until the ding of an alarm startles you both.

Emily's nurse rises from her place at the door and eyes the monitor for a bit, then starts examining her patient. She gives you a reassuring smile. "She's spiking a fever again," she explains gently. "It's not uncommon, but we'll send samples of everything anyway in case her antibiotics need to be tweaked." She must see the looks on your faces because she adds, "Her blood pressure and heart rate are fine though. At this point I'm not too worried; we'll keep on top of it."

Penelope still looks stricken, and you can't pretend that the idea of another fever doesn't scare the hell out of you, but you make her look at you anyway and put enough force behind your words to convince you both. "Hey," you take her arm. "She's gonna be fine. You heard what I said, right? She's not alone."

You can see her set her jaw and clamp down on her rising panic. "No," she says with conviction. "No, she's not."

* * *

Emily has never felt this horrid in her life.

Not when she was seven and came down with malaria on a trip to Mali. Not even with a wooden table leg plunged into her gut. The ventilator pushes too much air into her and sends a searing pain through her chest each time. She is sure she will burst open at any moment. She is invaded everywhere by foreign materials that impale her, pin her to the bed and suspend her, helpless, like a hooked fish. She can't truly wake up, but she isn't really asleep either and she feels altogether too solid.

She is convinced that if she stays still enough eventually space will open up in her body and she will fade backwards into the mattress and there will be nothing left of her to impale or to hurt and she will be free. The stillness isn't really a problem; her limbs are so heavy she can't even be bothered to try pushing at the tube in her mouth, and trying to move her torso would be akin to torture, so she just waits and hopes that she starts fading soon. She knows enough to realize her mind isn't working properly at the moment and that she is having trouble concentrating on more than one thing at a time, so she squeezes the blanket with her right hand and enjoys the softness of it and thinks that if her right hand is busy doing that then the rest of her might forget to hold itself together and she will begin to feel nothing at all except the blanket underneath her palm (it is fuzzy, not coarse like the others are, and she thinks she remembers Garcia and JJ covering her with it, but of course that could have just been a dream.)

The pain has darkened her vision, and she isn't exactly sure if her eyes are open or closed, so the hand on her shoulder startles her and the pain sears her as her concentration is broken and all of a sudden the blanket isn't the only thing that exists anymore. A face comes into her field of vision, shadowed. She has seen this woman before but can't remember her name. Then a voice: older, accented. "Emily, your friends are here, Dear. I know you don't feel well today. You want to see them?" Emily nods, minutely, remembering it is important to stay very still. She wants that. To see them. But suddenly the hand on her shoulder slides around back of her, her forehead hits what feels like a warm bosom, and she is trapped in an embrace and hauled up and to her right. The movement tears her in half and her vision flashes out, and she puts all her being into her right hand and the softness beneath it, squeeze, release, squeeze release. The voice comes back, _tsk_ing. "Always hunching over like that no matter what I do…" and Emily feels vaguely mutinous. She is not hunching over. She is becoming less solid.

By the time her vision clears, Rossi has stepped into her line of sight, followed closely by JJ. She forces herself to lift her hand in what might pass as a wave but then feels her forearm thump limply against the side rail. She rests her hand there, gripping the top of it listlessly because it seems like the thing to do, and hopes they get the message. They are profilers after all.

"Hey, Kiddo," Rossi greets softly. "Hear you're having a rough day." JJ passes him and takes something off her forehead. It returns a minute later, cooler and damper. She isn't really sure if she was hot or cold to begin with, but she likes the gentle touch.

Rossi doesn't seem to know what else to say, but he takes her hand after a minute and pulls up a chair. JJ talks to her for what seems like a long time. Emily has no idea what she is saying, exactly, but she doesn't care because she really likes the sound of JJ's voice. She does understand when her friend tells her she has to leave, but that Reid is waiting to take her place, and she will send him right in.

Rossi takes up the talking then, and Emily can understand what he is saying only marginally better and is pretty sure it has something to do with a car chase that probably took place in the 1970s. At some point, she realizes that her left hand has been mimicking her right, and that she has been intermittently squeezing Rossi's hand along with her blanket. Under different circumstances, she thinks she might be embarrassed, but she can't really bring herself to feel anything right now if she wants to keep any open space left in her body. It catches up with her eventually, though, and there comes a time when she squeezes but can't release, and her whole body contracts around the pain and she can feel _everything_ that has been done to her. It is then that people start talking at her, more and more urgently, but it is all too much and she can't understand them anyway, and she can't relax or let herself drown or do any of the things they normally want her to do. All she can do is resist with whatever strength she has left until finally, mercifully, she ceases to exist for a time.

This is how her time passes. She has no idea if it is hours, days, or weeks, or if it is day or night at any given moment. She simply knows it is passing because her friends change places: two of them when she opens her eyes once, another two the next time, and so on. Morgan is there a lot. He teases her sometimes, or tells her about stuff he can't wait to do once he gets back to DC. He says "we" a lot during those times, and she is not sure why he suddenly thinks that she will be interested that the Bulls are going to be in town soon. Sometimes she just watches him play cards, and sometimes he pauses and looks at her strangely and seems like he is about to say something but then doesn't.

Rossi actually turns out to be a pretty good storyteller, and she feels a little bad that she always ends up falling asleep before his stories are finished. Reid reads to her, and his selections are always surprisingly good. She doesn't feel as bad about falling asleep during those times because she knows that Reid's mother was a literature professor and read to him a lot, and that means bedtime stories, so surely Reid can identify with that.

Penelope chatters to her and makes lots of fluttering motions with her hands and always seems to want to reach for her. Sometimes she shows Emily the new picture or knick-knack that she has bought for her and displays in somewhere among the many decorations she has already brought in for her hospital room. JJ often seems as if she is trying to have a real conversation with her, as if they were at work or out for an evening and Emily could answer her back. It reminds her that there was actually a time when she could, and Emily is grateful for that because honestly sometimes she almost forgets.

Hotch usually lets the person he is with do the talking, but he comes regularly and gives her brief updates about logistics and what is going on at Quantico, and it makes her feel like an Agent again.

Sometimes, no one talks, and Emily thinks she likes those times most of all. Like now, Morgan sits with his chair crowding her bed, as he always does, but leans back in it with a faraway look in his eyes. Reid flips through a journal a little farther back, and the room is silent except for the incessant hissing and beeping, and Emily feels almost peaceful as she drifts in and out, secure in the knowledge that someone will be there every time she opens her eyes. After a while, Rossi comes in and whispers something to Morgan, who looks at her and then nods before squeezing her hand and getting up to leave. Rossi takes his place and starts quietly studying his abandoned game of Solitaire on the side of her bed next to her hip. Emily has not had a shower in ages. She is sweaty and weak and is fairly certain that at least half of her boob is showing, but she simply can't bring herself to care because as far as she is concerned all of Milwaukee has seen her naked at this point, and there is a tube draining her urine, for goodness sake, right out for the world to see, and in the end she supposes that really, that's what family is: those people who will sit down right next to your pee bag without batting an eyelash and hold your hand and talk to you, even though you can't answer them and usually end up falling asleep in the middle of their sentences, and who will still always be there when you wake up.

Emily notices the white board that has been propped up against the bed rail directly next to her, its message written carefully in purple with Penelope's distinctive flourish: _Emily, We love you! _and realizes that being solid might not be so horrible after all if this is what she has to wake up to.


	10. Epilogue

You make your way down the ICU corridor to her room a bit later than usual today. You slept in accidentally (and you are trying your best not to let the guilt overtake you, you really are) and then let Reid and Penelope talk you into brunch. The two have insisted on staying here with you until Emily is stable enough to be flown back to DC, which should be soon; there is already talk of discharging her from the ICU to a step-down unit today or tomorrow. She was extubated two days ago and has been breathing on her own ever since, and JJ, Hotch, and Rossi flew back yesterday after ensuring that she was progressing as expected. Reid and Penelope want to spend a few hours arranging her transport with the insurance company before joining you later in the afternoon. They are not fooling you. You know that the hospital will do this and that your friends will be spending the time teleconferencing with the rest of the team regarding their progress on finding the people responsible for your quarantine. You know they have already given the profile along with all new evidence regarding the deaths of Matthew Van Dyke, Elaine Wiggins, and Addie Saunders to the Milwaukee PD and will continue with their own private investigation until they track down the mysterious men in white suits. To be honest, you are happy to let them handle the investigation for a while, and you have to admit you are grateful to have some time alone with Emily. As harrowing as your time isolated together was, you find yourself craving that closeness with her now. You tell yourself it is a reaction to trauma that will fade once things begin to go back to normal, but a part of you doubts it is actually that simple.

A familiar face catches your attention, and you greet Allan, one of Emily's nurses, who is sitting at a desk outside a room a few doors down from the entrance. "Hey, man." You shake his hand. "Not with Em today?"

"Nah, not today. I hear she's doing great, though."

"Yeah, yeah." For some reason a painful lump forms in your throat and your eyes start to sting and it's not that you're getting choked up; it's just that you're under a lot of stress and you haven't gotten much sleep lately. You force your voice to come out steady and even and hope he doesn't notice. "I don't know how to ever thank you guys enough." It's true. Anything you say or do will just be words and gestures, but Emily is alive, and no word or gesture will ever, ever come close to equaling that.

Allan just shrugs you off. "Hey, man, I'm just glad to see she's getting better. You take care of her." He gives you a pat on the shoulder and you continue towards her room.

When you get to Emily's door, her nurse is just coming out to sit at her desk set up by the entryway. Celeste must already be in her early 60s, with a soft Grenadan accent that belies her brisk and no-nonsense attitude. You have come to learn that her nickname on the floor is, aptly, The General, and you always feel secure knowing that nothing in Emily's care will be overlooked under her shrewd supervision. She has the habit of calling everyone "Dear" and "Sweetheart" even while fixing you with her signature piercing and mildly disapproving glare over her glasses. You have seen that glare win her her way in even the strongest disagreements over her patient's care, and though you can't deny that it makes you quake just a little when directed toward you, you couldn't be more grateful for it.

"Hi, Dear." She greets you at Emily's door, studying you over her glasses.

"Hi, Celeste, Emily okay?"

"She's fine; you can go on in. She's just had a bolus of her pain medication, so she's kind of drowsy."

You have come to learn that "drowsy" is a multi-purpose term used to describe really any state between "pleasantly doped" to "fast asleep for the next four hours." The wide, goofy grin Emily gives you when you walk in indicates that right now it is definitely the former.

"Heeyyyy Morgan!" She greets you in a lazy slur. You can't help but return her grin. She really isn't supposed to be talking too much, but you have yet to get over what an immense relief it is to see her face, all of it, and have her speak to you in her now-familiar hoarse rasp.

"Hey, Prentiss, where's your oxygen?" You notice the discarded cannula on the pillow next to her and allow yourself to hope for the best, but only cautiously. You know she has a tendency to remove it and desaturate, and you tense automatically at the idea.

Your concerns are validated when she avoids eye contact. "I think C'leste told me I didn't need it." She purses her lips and turns her head to look at one of her IV pumps. Emily Prentiss may be a world-class profiler and compartmentalizer-extraordinaire, but pumped full of Dilaudid she is an absolutely lousy liar.

"No, I just got tired of fightin' wit' you on it," the woman says, unimpressed, studying the most recent print-out of her heart rhythm. "You'll feel it soon enough an' won't be so pleased anymore."

Unfortunately, you have not yet learned to be so nonchalant. You fumble in your haste to get it back on her, trying to distract her while you do. "So, Prentiss, your day good so far?"

"Mmm, I had another popsicle for breakfast," she says dreamily. "It was the best. Ever." You chuckle, knowing how obsessed she has become with the popsicles she has been given leave to eat after over a week taking nothing by mouth.

Emily's eyes light up as she remembers something else. "An' I walked to the chair and sat in it for _hours_."

_This _is such good news you have to restrain yourself from throwing your arms around her and squeezing. The last time Physiotherapy tried to get her to stand by the side of her bed her heart started to fibrillate and her blood pressure dropped so low she nearly passed out. You look to Celeste for verification, and she nods. "Mmhmm, she sat for 30 minutes then made it back. She did good."

"Good for you, Girl, that's exciting!" It really is. Emily giggles, thrilled someone agrees with her, and slaps the hand you hold up for her to high-five.

"It was!" She agrees. "Plus the physiotherapist is dreamy." She frowns. "Or maybe he's the respiratory therapist…"

"Aw, you're breaking my heart, Prentiss."

Emily's eyes snap to yours, widening in surprise. She looks genuinely contrite. "Sorry!"

"It's ok. Anything else?"

"Hmm, I got all my tubes out today."

You can still see several emerging from underneath the covers, not to mention the multiple lines that run from her back, from underneath her clavicle, and up the inside of her arm. You raise your eyebrows at her. "All of them?"

"C'leste, how many tubes did you take outta me today?"

"Three, Sweetheart."

You hide a smirk; it always amuses you to hear the term of endearment addressed to Prentiss. She herself appears utterly unconcerned.

"I got three tubes taken out today." Emily amends.

"That's good."

"Yeah…" She pauses. "Hurts though."

Your heart squeezes uncomfortably. "I know it does, Em."

"Hey." Emily's eyebrows knit together as if she is thinking very hard about something.

"Hey." You wait.

"Did you say you were gonna tie my hands to the bed?"

You are taken aback. You have said many things to her over the past 10 days, most of which you never thought she would hear or remember. Your mind shuffles through them until… oh_. That long ago_? It is a memory you don't want to dwell on for too long. You smile at her. "Yeah, I guess I did… You were being a bit of a pain." You nudge her gently. "Why?"

"Mmm," she grins lazily at you. "I mean, maybe if it wasn't a _hospital_ bed… might not be so bad…"

Your mouth opens and you flounder for a while. Behind you, Celeste lets out an amused snort, and you are determined to regain the upper hand. "Prentiss," you finally manage. "I understand you are high out of your mind right now, but if you think I'm ever gonna let you live this one down, you've got one _hell_ of a schooling comin' your way."

Emily looks ridiculously pleased with herself, and you can't help but grab her hand as she closes her eyes and appears to drift off, the smile on her face acting like a salve over the wound that the last 10 days has left on you both.

But there is another wound, one that has been there far longer than the memory of white Suits and a green light and a terrifying fever. It is the gaping hole that was left in you, in your team and, you suspect, in her as well by the death of your partner, and which never truly filled in even after her sudden return closed it over. You hate thinking of this whole ordeal as some sort of twisted form of redemption, but you can't help but think about how there is no secrecy among you this time. There is a sense of growing confidence and control over what you can all do to help, and there is an unspoken agreement that whatever happens, your friend will not be alone. You can also see Emily actually accepting the support and beginning to understand that love is more than protection, and family is more than self-sacrifice. In short, there is everything there wasn't last time, and you have to admit that with the violent opening of wounds both old and new, there has been some healing that has begun as well.

Emily has been quiet for quite a while, and you are ready to settle back and start reading for a bit while she sleeps, when a sharp intake of breath catches your attention.

"Derek?"

"Yeah?"

"You're dreamy too."

You laugh, squeeze your partner's hand. "Thanks, Princess."

* * *

So that's it for Biohazard! I want to thank once again everyone who has read and reviewed or otherwise enjoyed this story. It was a blast to write, and you guys made it practically write itself. The only bad thing about having such amazing reviewers is that with every chapter my anxiety kept growing and my attitude went from "Meh, I'll post and see if anyone's interested" to "Omg I must not disappoint my amazing readers!" So... thank you for that, seriously! I have to admit I'll miss my writing time on the couch on my days off, so who knows, maybe inspiration will strike again sometime soon.


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